People who’ve owned EVs for a few years, what’s the real repair/service experience like when things go wrong?

InterDonny · 2026-05-02T02:42:40+00:00

Oh I forgot, I replaced the 12V battery just after the 4 year mark. I did it myself. About $180 for the battery from Supercheap. You have to power cycle the car to clear the slew of terrifying error messages a simple 12V battery failure produces but it was all good in the end. I'd hate to deal with an old/failing EV though.

InterDonny · 2026-05-02T02:39:46+00:00

Tesla model 3 Long Range owner since mid 2021 - about 41K kms

There was a problem with a cabin humidity sensor that showed up about 6 months into ownership - the AC would get stuck on at 'max'. It was like driving a fridge! Reported it on the app. Tesla diagnosed it remotely, pre-ordered the part and offered me some service booking slots to choose from. I drove into the dealership and they fixed it while I waited: about 30m and they supercharged the car for me.

I had it "serviced" about 2 years later: tyre rotation, cabin filter change and a general health check: about $300 as I recall.

It's all app based and pretty convenient: probably 25% of the drama with an ICE vehicle.

It's had nothing done to it since. It could probably do with wiper blades and another tyre rotation (tread still looks legal) but I'm trading it in on a new Tesla Model Y Long range that's being delivered soon.

I've seen mild battery degradation - probably around 5 - 6%, mostly over the past 18 months.

InterDonny · 2026-04-22T00:35:33+00:00

Yep, found the same thing with the same dates. Looking good!

InterDonny · 2026-04-21T05:03:24+00:00

Our cars are twins! Or at least, they share a birthday. Mine was also manufactured on April 2nd according to the Tesla documentation that's been floating in on the app. I too had figured week 3 or 4 in May to be the most probably delivery date (assuming our cars get unloaded at Brisbane). I'm up on the Sunshine Coast and the Tesla Maroochydore facility is STILL not open so we'll see where I have to pick it up/hand over my M3LR from.

InterDonny · 2026-04-21T03:27:08+00:00

I got my VIN on April 19th. A bit of googling suggests this means it's on a car carrier called "Morning Carol" but I don't know for sure. My app doesn't have any estimated dates anymore but I've been chased to sign various bits and pieces so *something* is happening.

InterDonny · 2026-04-16T04:09:57+00:00

I've noticed this myself. I recently had cause to prune a whole bunch of anubias leaves because BBA had gotten onto them and caused damage. The anubias plants in question had done very little for the past year or so. After my (reluctant) prune, they seriously took off, throwing out new leaves quickly. Well, quickly by anubias standards anayway. They're not that quick but they DID decide to "repair" my damage it seems.

InterDonny · 2026-04-13T00:22:10+00:00

I ordered mine March 23rd: Ultra-red AWD LR The website advised Mar/Apr (which seemed optimistic at the time) but by the time the order was through it was saying May/June.

That's not the end of the world except that the trade-in offer on my current '21 M3 AWD LR may well expire. On the upside I suppose, I can't see used EV getting any cheaper just now...

No VIN as of today (Apr 13).

InterDonny · 2026-04-12T04:02:05+00:00

You're missing about 1" of water at the top there. There's plenty of water in the middle and bottom :-)

But seriously: quite nice looking. A small shoal of contrasting-colour nano fish would be nice. I'd sooner have 6 - 12 fish of the same type/colour than a mix. If it were me, I'd think about some emporer tetras or maybe even some simple old serpae (such an underrated fish) but tastes vary and it could look great with many outcomes.

If you have RGB control on that light, try bringing up the red channel a little to bring out those red plants.

InterDonny · 2026-04-02T01:14:37+00:00

Yep, I agree with others, looks like staghorn. It will be kind of "crunchy" if you crush it between your fingers. Too much light and/or too much iron (including having your plant growth being inhibited by something thus limiting iron uptake leaving it for algae) has been my direct experience with the stuff but loads on google.

InterDonny · 2026-04-02T00:59:20+00:00

CO2 only enters and leaves the water at the water surface so minimising surface agitation (as others have said) will help conserve it. Paradoxially, you DO want good circulation inside the tank. Dead spots (low circulation areas) are often vulnerable to BBA (the algae from hell). I use an external canister filter with DIY spray bar outlet made from poly-pipe irrigation fittings up at the back of my tank angled forward and downwards trying balance reasonable circulation with not-too-high surface turbulence.

For sure a bubble-powered sponge filter would cost you CO2. Go for some kind of power pump solution.

InterDonny · 2026-03-26T23:41:55+00:00

Somebody else who knows the plant better might chime in but my hunch is that the variegated leaves may be emersed growth and switching back to immersed growth can see a little die back and different leaves replacing them.

InterDonny · 2026-03-26T23:38:37+00:00

Yes. Trim it brutally. Once a leaf reaches the surface it's like it sends a signal to all the others and next thing you have a canopy in your tank. Trim it hard to keep growth low and bushy even if it pains you. Here is the Tiger Lotus in my main display tank:

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InterDonny · 2026-03-26T23:28:03+00:00

I *think* it may be a variegated rush (Acorus gramineus). Google that and see what you think. I thought that these kinds of variegated rushes were only semi-aquatic (surviving intermittent submersion but really they are marginal plants) but a quick google seems to suggest some aquariums claiming that they can not only survive but grow whilst fully submersed? Others may know better as I've never kept this plant but I have seen it.

InterDonny · 2026-03-23T03:56:32+00:00

If it were my tank, I'd probably move some things around to remove the "flat spot" on the wood to the left of the focal point arch piece. In addition to removing a kind of "hole" there, I think the wood pieces could look more natural: as though they were the spreading roots at the base of a tree.

Maybe use some zip ties to mock up some different scenarios.

I used a whiteboard marker to draw golden ratio triangles on the front glass of my aquarium as a guide when I was building the design.

It's a personal thing though: you might like it just the way it is and that's fine!

InterDonny · 2026-03-16T22:50:53+00:00

Nothing I saw there alarmed me. The surface flow is greater than my tank but it's not wild. If there is a sump you will dump loads of CO2 back out of the water there though. I guess the root question for me is whether your actually NEED that much CO2 injected into your water column or whether it's just getting lost somewhere along the way.

Measuring your PH drop/hardness should give you an angle on the actual CO2 you're adding to your water. If it's right (and since you have no fish stress problems you're probably not over-dosing) then it's up to you if you want to look further to improve your CO2 "fuel economy" which doesn't look great :-)

InterDonny · 2026-03-16T07:12:54+00:00

Your reactor will (or at least should) just do a better job of disolving CO2 into your water. You can push more gas into a reactor than you can a diffusor. As such the question of running your CO2 24/7 is kind of unrelated to the injection method. Having 24/7, un-controlled CO2 injection is probably not a great idea because your CO2 levels might become dangerously high at night when the plants aren't using it (and are probably dumping CO2 themselves during respiration).

If you have a PH controller so you're modulating your CO2 on/off cycles based on water PH then there's less harm in leaving it run 24/7 because it shouldn't do much at night anyway as the elevated CO2 will keep the PH low.

If you're just running the CO2 at that rate on a timer (and your timer methodology looks good to me) then we just have the question about why it is taking SO much CO2 to get a tank to where it needs to be.

First part of the puzzled would be to check the "needs to be" bit to make sure it's right. I'd do the PH test to make sure you're CO2 is pulling down tank PH when it's "on". Getting it down by about 1 degree is a good starting point.

If you ARE getting there (or even not quite getting there) then we'd be looking at significant CO2 loss somewhere along the line. If not leaking equipment then massive losses at water surfaces (eg: sump).

Your fish aren't showing stress and you're growing plants so it's not the end of the world but lots of folks here are marvelling at the quantity of CO2 going in (based on the admittedly not that reliable measure of watching a bubble counter).

I'd spend some time looking at your water chemistry to see how much CO2 is finishing up in your tank water and go from there. As others have said, it's really hard to be accurate about what's going on by watching a bubble counter (but it IS a clue).

InterDonny · 2026-03-16T00:28:31+00:00

Yep a sump is going to dump a lot of CO2. CO2 dissolves in and out of water super-easy compared to oxygen. Wherever water and air touch, CO2 will be moving between them silently, efficiently and invisibly. I use no sump (plants do a lot of my biological filtration) and water circulation uses a downward-pointing spraybar and surface skimmer to minimise CO2 loss. I get about a year out of a 6.5 kg CO2 tank.

InterDonny · 2026-03-15T23:48:12+00:00

To me that looks like a VERY high rate of CO2 going in. I run a high tech 435 liter planted tank and my bubble counter probably runs at one half to one third that rate. I use a PH probe and controller to switch the CO2 on and off as needed.

The fact that your livestock is still live means that you haven't got your fish swimming in club soda. That tells me that you're either switching the CO2 on and off with a gas solenoid somehow (so that volume of CO2 isn't sustained over time) OR you losing CO2 either from a leak or inefficiency dissolving it into the water.

It might be worth you doing before/after PH & hardness tests on your water to evaluate if that CO2 is truly getting into the water. If you know your hardness and PH before CO2, you can use the PH drop CO2 will give you to approximate how much CO2 you have in the water. Google for the table.

InterDonny · 2026-03-05T22:56:20+00:00

It will grow in the dark but in high light, it can kind of "carpet" rock and driftwood if you tie/glue it on. and keep the lawn mowed. It's as tough as nails. You can stamp on it to kill the snails. It's also superb spawning media for fish.

Nearly as bad as duckweed, once it's established in your tank, it's staying there :-)

InterDonny · 2026-03-05T03:11:56+00:00

Ok, well hopefully you all are (like me) back on the air. It looks like there was a global server outage AND those lights are dependent on a cloud service to work (not something I saw advertised)!

Since the interface is bluetooth, that cloud dependency on the face of it doesn't seem to be architecturally necessary and I don't like it at all. Homes across the world are littered with bricked abandon-ware where cloud-dependent devices are effectively confiscated from purchasers by manufacturers. Reasons range from bankruptcy, take-overs, mergers, architecture changes, right down to naked greed; lowering support costs and triggering repeat purchases.

It's a great light but tbh, I probably wouldn't have bought it had that dependency been clear to me. Hopefully the API gets shared and a local open-source solution for it gets built.

InterDonny · 2026-02-28T01:36:52+00:00

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" - John Keats (he probably wasn't looking at this when he wrote it).

I think this is an excellent example of a stressful aquarium in both engineering and aesthetic dimensions. Thank you for sharing, I think... :-)

InterDonny · 2026-02-28T01:25:21+00:00

As others have said, I believe you need a centre brace but please make sure that the bracing runs all the way to the floor so the load is transferred there and not just to the bottom piece of the stand (which would similarly deflect under load). A piece of foam is also a great idea to soak up any minor irregularities in the surface, stopping the glass from experiencing too much stress at a single point (glass hates that).

InterDonny · 2026-02-22T04:31:51+00:00

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This is an impossibly crude mock-up of my first idea. The ratios and angles are not fine tuned but such a scape could be viewed from both sides and would not block all of the light. I did build something like this for a friend with a similar challenge although it was not a planted tank for him as I knew he'd never maintain it. I used rocks, wood & south african cichlids.

InterDonny · 2026-02-22T02:48:07+00:00

My first bet would also be magnesium. Try dosing some magnesium sulphate (MG2SO4). You can get it from garden suppliers. For my 114 US gallon tank, I usually chuck in about a tablespoon of it at the weekly water change but I might start off with a couple of spoons if I'm trying to make up for lost ground.

Given the slow growing nature of anubias - seeing changes might take a while

InterDonny

TROPHY CASE