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Post by troybtj on Jan 20, 2016 16:10:38 GMT -5
The Danios I tried (5) would chase the mollies around as I remember from way back. I've always liked Mollies due to their mellow nature, but the H&Tlight Tetras are winning that prize now.
I'll look into the Congo Tetras and some others, but that's down the road, I still have to get the final layout done. All but one water sprite will go away, and two of each type of sword plant, plus some dwarf grass and Java fern on the wood will be what's left. I usually chop off the upper chunks of the water sprite each week, but I'm letting plants get the rest of the Nitrates out of the water, down another 20ppm or so to 30ppm.
Speaking of maintenance, how much do you clean the pre-filter sponges? Just squeeze out once or twice in water replaced, or rinse extremely well in the used aquarium water? I can also reverse a power head to back flush them if that's better.
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Post by Carl on Jan 20, 2016 17:07:46 GMT -5
Speaking of maintenance, how much do you clean the pre-filter sponges? Just squeeze out once or twice in water replaced, or rinse extremely well in the used aquarium water? I can also reverse a power head to back flush them if that's better. Squeezing is best based on my experience. The grey area is how much. You first option you noted is usually good enough for an average aquarium, but sometimes in a high bio load aquariums multiple rinsings in used aquarium water (or de-chlorinated tap water) is required. Further Info about sponge media care: www.americanaquariumproducts.com/sponge_filtration.html#MediaCarl
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Jan 20, 2016 18:16:49 GMT -5
I'll squeeze it like ten times underwater and put it back in the tank... I know ten isn't too much, because I've also done it where I've squeezed the sponge until the water would no longer be mucked... It takes like three fresh bucket loads and even then, the water wasn't truly clear.
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Post by troybtj on Apr 17, 2016 21:50:38 GMT -5
Ok, sorry for the long vacation, I'm back around! Two issues yet, first is I still haven't decided what to do with plants, and second, I don't know what is wrong with the crypts and swords, they are turning yellow and dissolving. Nitrates are about 20ppm, so the checklist looks like Iron deficiency? I'd thought the Flourite substrate would prevent that. Second, my kid didn't feel like putting in the river, and he got me a chunk of driftwood as a present. It's a bit small, but fits fully from front to back, no width. Growing happily on it is some java moss that looks very nice. Lastly, I got infested with SNAILS!!! Blech. They keep the tank looking clean, but they are so numerous that it distracts a lot (all the white spots on background, bottom, driftwood). Suggestions for a snail genocide? I don't know if Seachem Cupramine will kill them, and I don't want to kill the bio filter or fish... And for those helping out, here's how it looks, DIY CO 2 has been feeding it for a couple months now. Just placed an order with AAP for some Seachem Iron, hopefully that'll do the trick. I've been a bit lax in dosing with Flourish, Flourish Trace, and no Flourish Excel since the CO 2 has been going steady. Thanks for all your input and suggestions, people! Haven't lost a fish yet, and the tank is a bit overloaded due to a couple mollies having some babies.
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Post by troybtj on Apr 17, 2016 22:25:28 GMT -5
Here is a closeup of the leaves. It shows all the symptoms, yellowing, dissolving (the clear leaf in the back that's out of depth of field), and a hole in the leaf on another - don't know if that's snail interference or not.
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Post by Carl on Apr 18, 2016 9:20:35 GMT -5
Welcome Back!
Yellowing can be an iron deficiency, but it can also be other trace elements or simply an imbalance of minerals/nutrients (which is why some plant keepers will use RO or RO/DI water then add back the exact minerals they desire.
The snails are likely an issues too, including weakening the plants.
Removal of snails with plants can be tricky. I would start with Botias and/or loaches. Cucumber slices can attract snails, which are then removed and thrown away
Carl
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Apr 18, 2016 12:03:20 GMT -5
Yellowing can also happen to old leafs as the plants get used to new light and start forming new leafs. Do you see new growth at all. Snails are usually attracted to dying leafs and usually leaf healthy leafs alone. You'd want to be in a schedule with your ferts, so the plants are never limited in nurt. Also consider root tabs.
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Post by troybtj on Apr 18, 2016 22:51:36 GMT -5
Yellowing can also happen to old leafs as the plants get used to new light and start forming new leafs. Do you see new growth at all. Snails are usually attracted to dying leafs and usually leaf healthy leafs alone. You'd want to be in a schedule with your ferts, so the plants are never limited in nurt. Also consider root tabs. The sword grew well for the first couple of months, but has been doing this for the past month without any lighting changes. My rough guess at the problem is that I'm using RO/DI water and forgot to add enough Fert/Trace to get things back in complete order. The Flourite may have released enough of the minerals at setup to get them going, and has now sort of mellowed out. That's my best guess for why it was going well and then stopped. I've been using RODI water with Replenish to 150ppm GH, Alkaline Buffer to 80ppm KH, Flourish about once per week, Flourish Trace about once per week. From browsing, it looks like I should be adding something like Seachem Equilibrium instead of Replenish to the water. Which root tabs and other ferts should I be concerned with or looking at? I remember you mentioning dry ferts and blends, and that is something I'd like to try out for a month. The water sprite that is overgrown in the photo will be leaving the tank in another month or so, once the medium sized baby mollies get to about 1" long and off to the pet shop. Right now the water sprite is there for "Pollution Control" due to the overcrowding. It is growing like mad with OK color, a bit lighter green than in the other tank, but it's growing to overgrowing. The plants that aren't liking it are the other "easy maintenance" plants: Crypt, Sword, and Java Fern. They had an early growth spurt, and are now just dissolving, tank wide. I'm wondering if the water sprite is either sucking up nutrients they need, or if it's just a durable weed that doesn't need much. I do know it's great for lowering nitrates... Current bio load is: 10 Head & Tail Light Tetras 4 Juvenile/Adult Mollies, 3 female, 1 male 8 First birth mollies that didn't get eaten 12-20 New baby mollies at < 1/4" long Approximately 1.8 billion snails of unknown type, I don't want to count them again. Filtration is: 50 Gallon HOB Filter SunSun 303B, filter pad, lava rock, and 1 liter of Matrix, bag o carbon. Both with intake prefilters, except for the small surface skimmer input on the 303B. No purigen recently. Thinking my biggest mistake is not using my undrinkable tap water. Another sword and water sprite are growing fine in the other tank that is 50/50 Tap/RODI water with same fert schedule. I can't get the pH under 8 using my tap water without suffocating them in CO 2, and the KH is only 40, which confuses me. It tastes entirely awful to drink, a bitter, stale taste, and it comes out of the faucet with a yellow tint. Sidenote: The 5 gallon Kandiohi/Spring Water bottles are more expensive than 5 gallons of RO water. I have bottled water delivered here, and I drink a lot of it. Also, some other news: My son got an after school job at my LFS! So now I get the RODI water for free, as well as an employed offspring discount.
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Post by coco on Apr 19, 2016 8:26:04 GMT -5
How about some assassin snails for your snail problem?
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Post by troybtj on Apr 19, 2016 12:00:36 GMT -5
How about some assassin snails for your snail problem? I'll try to find some real ones. All the big chain pet shops here have severe snail issues as well, the LFS is the only one that didn't, but I got some "snail free" free plants from a friend, one week later and boom. I even dipped them in PP water for a minute or so, it apparently didn't kill eggs or something. Nobody seems to have assassin snails in stock, either because they hate snails, or mis-identify what they are trying to sell. How do you get rid of the assassin snails? Do they overpopulate too? I'll try the cucumber suggestion from Carl first, if they all migrate to that, I'm willing to buy a few pounds of them and start slicing, waiting, removing, repeating. I guess I'd be OK if the number of them went down to half a dozen larger ones, but all these white speck new snails are very unsightly. They do keep everything looking nice, so I'll give them that. The funny part is I didn't realize The Issue until I looked at the tank after a bit of a vacation and it was entirely clean, all the plumbing, glass, etc. I was wondering if I got a pleco and forgot about it, or what, then I noticed the little buggers.
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Post by devonjohnsgard on Apr 19, 2016 12:14:27 GMT -5
The sword grew well for the first couple of months, but has been doing this for the past month without any lighting changes. My rough guess at the problem is that I'm using RO/DI water and forgot to add enough Fert/Trace to get things back in complete order. The Flourite may have released enough of the minerals at setup to get them going, and has now sort of mellowed out. That's my best guess for why it was going well and then stopped. What lighting are you using again? I think your thinking along the right lines. The thought in the planted community is to never let the plants go without nutrient in the tank. If higher light, this is more of a concern. Many LED provide this high light. I think your thought about the water sprite is something. You're limiting your ferts and that sprite is already such a fast grower, I'm sure it's using up whatever you are putting in. People in the planted community will go so far to OVER dose ferts, then do a large water change each week to refresh the water. Just make sure the plants are never without. Which is why your plants grow better in the RO cut water instead of mostly RO. I've been using RODI water with Replenish to 150ppm GH, Alkaline Buffer to 80ppm KH, Flourish about once per week, Flourish Trace about once per week. From browsing, it looks like I should be adding something like Seachem Equilibrium instead of Replenish to the water. Replenish is best for the fish honestly, over Equilibrium. If your dosing ferts, including trace elements, Equilibrium is not needed. We've compared the too and replenish is what you want for best fish health. Which root tabs and other ferts should I be concerned with or looking at? I remember you mentioning dry ferts and blends, and that is something I'd like to try out for a month. Yes, I would recommend root tabs as most of the feeding is in the substrate, but then I would recommend quality water column ferts. I'd use up the SeaChem stuff you have and dose like every other day...I dose daily ...The macros, then the mircos. Then water change after about a week. If your looking for a complete fert line, I would check out the new line AAP came out with. These are for higher demanding tanks...You said dry ferts...the perk to dry is cost, cause they will end up lasting a long time. These liquid ferts are high concentrates of dry ferts. We just have them in a nice squirt bottles to make for easy daily dosing...The ferts can be customized depending on how high tech it is. www.americanaquariumproducts.com/BulkSeaSaltFerts.htmland I would still recommend injecting co2. Also, some other news: My son got an after school job at my LFS! So now I get the RODI water for free, as well as an employed offspring discount. Awesome!
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Post by Carl on Apr 19, 2016 12:26:42 GMT -5
Thinking my biggest mistake is not using my undrinkable tap water. Another sword and water sprite are growing fine in the other tank that is 50/50 Tap/RODI water with same fert schedule. I can't get the pH under 8 using my tap water without suffocating them in CO 2, and the KH is only 40, which confuses me. It tastes entirely awful to drink, a bitter, stale taste, and it comes out of the faucet with a yellow tint. Ditto Devon's response! As for pH, keep in mind that the bicarbonates that primarily affect KH/alkalinity have a less direct affect on pH. As well pH is most simply stated as a measurement of hydrogen ions (in other words their charge) in a logarithm to base 10. This can remain high until enough acids counter this charge or a resin is used to counter this charge. RO water, does not alter this charge much, only DI water (hence the term de-ionized water) Congrats!! Carl
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Post by troybtj on Apr 19, 2016 14:32:42 GMT -5
Which root tabs and other ferts should I be concerned with or looking at? I remember you mentioning dry ferts and blends, and that is something I'd like to try out for a month. Yes, I would recommend root tabs as most of the feeding is in the substrate, but then I would recommend quality water column ferts. I'd use up the SeaChem stuff you have and dose like every other day...I dose daily ...The macros, then the mircos. Then water change after about a week. If your looking for a complete fert line, I would check out the new line AAP came out with. These are for higher demanding tanks...You said dry ferts...the perk to dry is cost, cause they will end up lasting a long time. These liquid ferts are high concentrates of dry ferts. We just have them in a nice squirt bottles to make for easy daily dosing...The ferts can be customized depending on how high tech it is. www.americanaquariumproducts.com/BulkSeaSaltFerts.htmland I would still recommend injecting co2. Also, some other news: My son got an after school job at my LFS! So now I get the RODI water for free, as well as an employed offspring discount. Awesome! You guys always manage to introduce me to a new product right AFTER I placed my previous order. How devious of you! I'll give them a try once I come up with something else to order, maybe a new spare Eheim vacuum, mines been torn apart and cleaned so much it isn't pretty. Don't worry about competition from the LFS, I'll still be loyal to you guys! Gotta spread the money a bit locally as well, though. I've been AFK due to getting addicted to a game, multiplayer sucks because kids are way too fast these days, or I'm getting slower. So I've quit playing now.
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Post by coco on Apr 19, 2016 16:42:37 GMT -5
How about some assassin snails for your snail problem? I'll try to find some real ones. All the big chain pet shops here have severe snail issues as well, the LFS is the only one that didn't, but I got some "snail free" free plants from a friend, one week later and boom. I even dipped them in PP water for a minute or so, it apparently didn't kill eggs or something. Nobody seems to have assassin snails in stock, either because they hate snails, or mis-identify what they are trying to sell. How do you get rid of the assassin snails? Do they overpopulate too? I'll try the cucumber suggestion from Carl first, if they all migrate to that, I'm willing to buy a few pounds of them and start slicing, waiting, removing, repeating. I guess I'd be OK if the number of them went down to half a dozen larger ones, but all these white speck new snails are very unsightly. They do keep everything looking nice, so I'll give them that. The funny part is I didn't realize The Issue until I looked at the tank after a bit of a vacation and it was entirely clean, all the plumbing, glass, etc. I was wondering if I got a pleco and forgot about it, or what, then I noticed the little buggers. Mike said his assassin snails reproduced, but mine have not done that yet. I have not seen any tiny little assassins crawling around. So, I guess they can, but no way near the point those pesky pond snails do. They are like rabbits on speed. I got 6 assassins for my 55 gallon about a month or two ago. I had been looking for quite some time for them. Finally found some at Petco. I have quite the infestation myself right now. I find empty shells from the pond snails on my sand/gravel. The assassins move quite fast. They are kind of cool looking.
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Post by coco on Apr 19, 2016 16:45:05 GMT -5
Oops, sorry Troy. I mixed my post in with yours.
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Post by troybtj on Apr 19, 2016 17:39:46 GMT -5
Sounds pretty cool. I think I'll worry about the snails later, once I get the plants growing happily again. The fish are healthy and breeding, and the babies are growing pretty quickly, so I'm happy with it for now. Once I get tired of the Mollies and Tetras, I'll switch out all of them to the LFS to sell and trade for a new kind of fishy. All these Mollies, Platinum, boring Silver, and Orange ones, came from Survivor, the one pregnant molly I started with. Their family tree looks like a yardstick.
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Post by troybtj on Apr 20, 2016 1:52:44 GMT -5
Here a couple more photos of the far left side of the tank, taken with a decent camera. The two photos overlap somewhat if you reference the wide phone pic above. The crypt is forward and right of the sword in the second picture, with the java fern between the two and in both frames a bit. Here is a close up of the crypt, which actually grew to the present size from just a seed laying on the gravel. This sprouted and planted itself there in December, grew through about March, and has been dissolving since: Second is the other sword. Similar story on this one, it started out with about 5 3" leaves (see previous pages for old pitchers of the random planting). It grew quickly and robustly with darker green leaves than the Water Sprite green color in the photo. Also in the background, out of depth of field, is a Java Fern, which grew a bit, then just stopped, but it isn't dissolving. According to the other chart I saw, it seems I'm lacking severely in either Iron or Potassium. I'll look into that and maybe have the LFS do a ppm test for all those macro nutrients. Speaking of Macro Nutrients, I really like that Two Pack of complete plant nutrition that you have in stock now! I'll see how I can recover now, but that's on my to get list now too. *hint* I wish the AAP site had a wish list you could save between trips. *hint*
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Post by mmfed01 on Apr 20, 2016 2:00:44 GMT -5
I vote for already mentioned root tabs and injected CO2.....
Mike
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Post by troybtj on Apr 20, 2016 2:37:46 GMT -5
I vote for already mentioned root tabs and injected CO2..... Mike I'm already using the DIY CO 2 setups that you turned me onto. The Citric Acid and Baking Soda ones. They are on both tanks and properly regulated now so I'm not chasing it around anymore. Added a small volume cylinder with real regulator on it at the output of the DIY unit so the flow is steady. Is there a particular brand or type of Root Tabs I should be looking for, or is "Root Tabs" the actual name of the product? I'll check locally for those once I understand the meaning, I've seen what you speak of, but in different versions from Tetra, API, and some other company I forgot.
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Post by mmfed01 on Apr 20, 2016 2:45:36 GMT -5
Hmmm....if your CO2 readings are regulated and constant then I'd look at root tabs. I've used root tab products from Seachem, rootmedic, offerings from Aquariumplants.com, generic and Pfertz. I currently use Pfertz....
Mike
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