JamesC
Member
After the success of my 25 litre PFK tank using Akadama as a substrate I decided it was time to change the 3.5 year old silica sand in my 200 litre Rena tank over to Akadama. The planned day arrived and the rest of the family went to Bluewater to give me some space 😀
Tank Details:
200 litre Rena tank
Eheim 2028 filter
Aquamas external CO2 reactor
Hydor ETH300 heater
Arcadia T5 Luminaire
Approx 4WPG for 8 hours straight
PMDD+PO4 dosing
I decided that because I had loads of shrimp and some fish I'd pre treat the Akadama to prevent the KH from dropping which is common with baked clay substrates. If you plan on setting up a new tank with no livestock for a while, then the pre-treating could be skipped.
I calculated that three bags of Akadama should be enough. This was all emptied into a dustbin and the following was added to a bucket of water to try and dissolve:
120g Calcium carbonate
105g Magnesium sulphate
30g Potassium sulphate
This solution was then added along with more water to completely cover the Akadama and left for one week. Makes a lovely red brown coloured water. Settles to look like this.
The stuff floating on top are small roots that must be dug up with the Akadama. As it's all baked they are perfectly safe. Smells a bit earthy as well.
After a week the Akadama was rinsed really well. Easiest way I found was to use a kitchen sieve under tap water. I put the rinsed Akadama back in the bags for storage.
This is what the water is like when rinsing.
Everything is now ready. Bin to put fish in. Three bags rinsed Akadama. Small bag of sphagnum moss peat. Gravel scoop. Buckets. Trays to put plants in.
Plants removed first
Fish and shrimp removed. Removing old substrate. This scoop I brought from Aqua Essentials is really good as it has holes in it to let the water out and makes life easy. Surprisingly the old substrate wasn't that dirty and had no signs of black anaerobic patches. Notice the BGA that had grown along the glass in the substrate.
After the tank was emptied and cleaned it was time for the substrate to go in. But first I covered the base on the tank in a thin layer of sphagnum moss peat. It should be just thick enough so you can see the glass still.
On top of this I added about a half inch of Akadama. This is to prevent the peat from being disturbed when the mulm is added. Cleaned the filter out to collect as much mulm as possible. This was then spread evenly over the thin layer of Akadama.
The rest of the Akadama was now added. Approx 2.5 inches deep at the front and 3.5 inches deep at the back. About a quarter of a bag was left so my guesswork was fairly close. Frisbee is great for adding water and not disturbing substrate.
Partially filled. Added wood and planted up. Planting was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I was expecting lots of floating plants, but it turned not a single plant came loose.
Filled to the top. Fish and shrimp returned. Had a cup of tea and then took this photo. Clarity not too bad.
Took me most of the day to do this but can now say it was well worth it. The new Akadama substrate is much better than the silica sand IMO. Next day the water in the tank was crystal clear, even looking along the whole four foot length.
I did some GH and KH tests on the water to see how the parameters would change. The water that was added has a KH of 3.3 and GH of 5.6.
After a few hours KH=3.3 and GH=11.2. GH was a lot higher than expected. Most likely because the Akadama wasn't rinsed properly after it's pre-treatment.
After 24 hours KH=3.3 and GH=13.4. GH has risen a bit. Nothing too much to worry about as it's KH that I'm more concerned with. The KH has remained steady which was my aim and which so far has worked. Going to see what it is like at the end of the week now. Water changes will bring the GH back down to normal levels in time.
I'm now thinking that perhaps my pre-treatment amounts were too high. They were a guess anyway. Perhaps cutting the amounts in half would work fine.
I'm going to update this journal regularly to document the progress of the tank, good and bad. See my thread on Akadama in the Substrates section for more detailed Akadama information - http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=741
Thanks for looking
James
Tank Details:
200 litre Rena tank
Eheim 2028 filter
Aquamas external CO2 reactor
Hydor ETH300 heater
Arcadia T5 Luminaire
Approx 4WPG for 8 hours straight
PMDD+PO4 dosing
I decided that because I had loads of shrimp and some fish I'd pre treat the Akadama to prevent the KH from dropping which is common with baked clay substrates. If you plan on setting up a new tank with no livestock for a while, then the pre-treating could be skipped.
I calculated that three bags of Akadama should be enough. This was all emptied into a dustbin and the following was added to a bucket of water to try and dissolve:
120g Calcium carbonate
105g Magnesium sulphate
30g Potassium sulphate
This solution was then added along with more water to completely cover the Akadama and left for one week. Makes a lovely red brown coloured water. Settles to look like this.
The stuff floating on top are small roots that must be dug up with the Akadama. As it's all baked they are perfectly safe. Smells a bit earthy as well.
After a week the Akadama was rinsed really well. Easiest way I found was to use a kitchen sieve under tap water. I put the rinsed Akadama back in the bags for storage.
This is what the water is like when rinsing.
Everything is now ready. Bin to put fish in. Three bags rinsed Akadama. Small bag of sphagnum moss peat. Gravel scoop. Buckets. Trays to put plants in.
Plants removed first
Fish and shrimp removed. Removing old substrate. This scoop I brought from Aqua Essentials is really good as it has holes in it to let the water out and makes life easy. Surprisingly the old substrate wasn't that dirty and had no signs of black anaerobic patches. Notice the BGA that had grown along the glass in the substrate.
After the tank was emptied and cleaned it was time for the substrate to go in. But first I covered the base on the tank in a thin layer of sphagnum moss peat. It should be just thick enough so you can see the glass still.
On top of this I added about a half inch of Akadama. This is to prevent the peat from being disturbed when the mulm is added. Cleaned the filter out to collect as much mulm as possible. This was then spread evenly over the thin layer of Akadama.
The rest of the Akadama was now added. Approx 2.5 inches deep at the front and 3.5 inches deep at the back. About a quarter of a bag was left so my guesswork was fairly close. Frisbee is great for adding water and not disturbing substrate.
Partially filled. Added wood and planted up. Planting was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I was expecting lots of floating plants, but it turned not a single plant came loose.
Filled to the top. Fish and shrimp returned. Had a cup of tea and then took this photo. Clarity not too bad.
Took me most of the day to do this but can now say it was well worth it. The new Akadama substrate is much better than the silica sand IMO. Next day the water in the tank was crystal clear, even looking along the whole four foot length.
I did some GH and KH tests on the water to see how the parameters would change. The water that was added has a KH of 3.3 and GH of 5.6.
After a few hours KH=3.3 and GH=11.2. GH was a lot higher than expected. Most likely because the Akadama wasn't rinsed properly after it's pre-treatment.
After 24 hours KH=3.3 and GH=13.4. GH has risen a bit. Nothing too much to worry about as it's KH that I'm more concerned with. The KH has remained steady which was my aim and which so far has worked. Going to see what it is like at the end of the week now. Water changes will bring the GH back down to normal levels in time.
I'm now thinking that perhaps my pre-treatment amounts were too high. They were a guess anyway. Perhaps cutting the amounts in half would work fine.
I'm going to update this journal regularly to document the progress of the tank, good and bad. See my thread on Akadama in the Substrates section for more detailed Akadama information - http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=741
Thanks for looking
James
