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Having another bash

DEL 707

Member
Joined
18 Jul 2009
Messages
81
I've had my tank up and running for over a year now and it's been pretty much up and down, truth be told, more downs then ups, algea has been a constant problem and recently a family member knocked up my CO2 unit when they thought they turned it down. Of course by the time I noticed I lost all my cardinal tetras and my cherry shrimp.

That was pretty much the last nail in the coffin for me, but the friends and family have convinced me to keep on trying, so I've come crawling back here for help. :silent:

Here's a link to a thread I made last year
"In need of assistance"

And here's a quick break down of my tank

Equitpement
  • Juwel Rio 125 tank
  • Using the internal filter
  • 2 x 24W Plant pro grow T5 lights (was 4), running time 2PM-9PM
  • Pressurised CO2 with Japanese style plate diffuser, running time 1PM-8PM
  • Koralia Nano 900 powerhead

Fish
  • 2 x Blue Dwarf Gourami
  • 4 x Sterbai Cory

Plants
  • Alternanthera Reineckii 'Pink' (Roseafolia)
  • Ceratophyllum Demersum (Foxtail)
  • Hygrophila Polysperma (Rosanervig)
  • Monosolenium Tenerum
  • Taxiphyllum Barbieri (Vasicularia)
  • Vallisneria Nana
  • Vallisneria Spiralis

Basically algea is still a huge problem, today I had the day off work and proceded with "Operation: massacre", pulling out what ever algea I could and cutting down anything that was infested with the stuff.
The end result was somewhat brutal.

Plantedtank090610.jpg


While my nitrite and ammonia are 0, my nitrates have risen to 20.

Maintence rise, I do a 50% water change every fortnight, it used to be every week, but I've gotten lazy.
Daily I dose 2-3ml of Tropica Plant Nutrition +.

My bulbs are over a year old now, so again I've been slack replacing them, but I went to get my blahblahblahblah in gear and place an order this week. I was thinking of getting 2 more Plant pro grow T5's again, but the only reason I piicked them out in the 1st place is because the name sounded right. Are there any better recommendations?

I've also nearly run out of Plant +, so I was going to order some more at the same time, but again I was wondering if there was another different type of fertiliser I could try?

CO2 has been a long running problem for me, I just have a standard CO2 tank that I rent out from BOC, but I've never been able to get my CO2 levels right, If I turn it up high enough to make my drop checker go slightly green, the fish start gasping, so I always have to keep it down low and colour blue.
In my old thread someone mentioned adding liquid CO2, but it's something I never explored, would this be worth trying out? And what is a good liquid Co2?

The tank's infested with snails and flatworms, what measures can I take to reduce their population.

Lastly I have a sick Sterbai, he's been like this for sometime, but I was hesitant to add medications while I had shrimp in the tank, which isn't the case anymore.
Here's a quick pic of him.

sickcorie.jpg


Thankfully it has never spread to any of the other fish, but if people can recommend me a medication to try, I can add it to the order.

I appreciate any and all replies.
 
Hi,
This tank looks in very sad shape. :thumbdown: When I see tanks like this I want to run out of the house screaming and immediately call either the World Health Organization (WHO) or The A-Team, featuring Mister T. I want him to throw something at you and call you names.

Certainly, one of the reasons for algae as a constant companion is your reluctance to keep it clean with more frequent and large water changes. Algae really like dirty tanks. I assume you're not doing a good job of cleaning your filter as well? BGA love that.

Your priorities are upside down, and that's why the health of the tank is more down than up. I mean, let's get real. When I read this I wanted to scream:
DEL 707 said:
..Maintence rise, I do a 50% water change every fortnight, it used to be every week, but I've gotten lazy.
Daily I dose 2-3ml of Tropica Plant Nutrition +.
Try stop being lazy. That always works. Do 2-3 50% water changes per week.

If someone knocked up my CO2 unit I would knock them upside their head with a crickett bat and that would be the end of that problem.

You haven't really identified exactly what species of algae is present, and that makes it very tough to troubleshoot effectively. It looks like you have either GDA or GSA on the glass, but I can't really see beyond that. Perhaps you could clarify?

DEL 707 said:
My bulbs are over a year old now, so again I've been slack replacing them, but I went to get my blahblahblahblah in gear and place an order this week. I was thinking of getting 2 more Plant pro grow T5's again, but the only reason I piicked them out in the 1st place is because the name sounded right. Are there any better recommendations?
Yeah, here's a recommendation;
The absolutely last thing you should be doing to this tank is to be thinking about getting new bulbs. The bulbs that you already have are fine and there is no need to get new bulbs just because they are a year old.

You need to fix your CO2. THIS should absolutely be your top priority. Forget about bulbs mate. Change the timing of your CO2 to something like 2 or 3 hours before lights on. Then turn it off 2 or 3 hours before lights off.

It's no point having CO2 if you're not going to do a good job of distribution. Can you see where that diffuser is? Mount it much lower down near the bottom and perhaps mount the Koralia just above it so that the Koralia swallows the CO2 and spits it out with force. You have to do a better job of distribution. Try different things to get the gas around the tank. Are you using 4dkH water in the dropchecker? If not then you will have a false reading. When you have better distribution you will solve a lot of these problems. You may want to think about ditching the internal filter and getting a nice cannister filter, but if nothen you have to stop pointing the outflow to the left as you have it here. It should be pointing towards the front of the tank so that it does not disrupt the flow from that spraybar (is that what that is?) You need to get the injection rate to a point as green as you can. I simply do not accept that the dropchecker has to be blue. You may as well not have CO2 if that's the case. The Koralia should also be pointing towards the front. Can't you see that the flow from the Koralia is canceling out the flow from that internal spud on the right? You may as well not have any flow at all. All flows must point in the same direction so that their energies are additive and not conflictive.

You can also try supplementing with Liquid carbon products such as Excel, EasyCarbo or the Aquaessentials equivalent. This will make more CO2 available to the plants and at the same time will be toxic to algae. Be careful though as some people report problems with Vallis. Liverworts and Bladderworts also do not like these products.

Do you see that tall stem in the front of the tank on the right? Tall stems do not belong in the front. that is both an aquascaping feaux pax as well as a circulation cardinal sin. either keep that plant no more than 2 inches tall or move it to the back, or get rid of it.

DEL 707 said:
I've also nearly run out of Plant +, so I was going to order some more at the same time, but again I was wondering if there was another different type of fertiliser I could try?
If you're on a budget you could try the dry powder route.

DEL 707 said:
While my nitrite and ammonia are 0, my nitrates have risen to 20.
Who cares? Let me guess; Did you measure the nitrate value with a test kit? Well, if so then chances are the actual values can just as easily be 0.2ppm. If you actually had 20ppm NO3 that might be the good news. Stop testing because it's not helping you . Ammonia and Nitrite are never actually zero in a tank, because they are constantly being produced.

Anyway, these are the first steps to recovery. Also, keep reading...

Cheers,
 
You haven't really identified exactly what species of algae is present, and that makes it very tough to troubleshoot effectively. It looks like you have either GDA or GSA on the glass, but I can't really see beyond that. Perhaps you could clarify?
If you look at the other thread I linked, you can see pictures of the algea.

It's no point having CO2 if you're not going to do a good job of distribution. Can you see where that diffuser is? Mount it much lower down near the bottom and perhaps mount the Koralia just above it so that the Koralia swallows the CO2 and spits it out with force. You have to do a better job of distribution.
I used to have it setup like that, but the problem was that the gas used to get stuck in the powerhead and make a god awful rattling sound. Which is why at the moment it's positioned below the filter powerhead.

As for the CO2, I don't know what to say, I used to have 2 CO2 drop checkers in the tank, 1 I bought and the other came with the CO2 setup, if I turned it up high enough to get both of them green, the fish would gasp and most of them would move to the surface.

For flow.
flow.jpg

That's the current setup, the koralia at the front is pointing downwards to the gravel.
Are you saying I should put it on the back glass pointing towards the front?
 
Hi there,
well done for sticking with it! ceg4048 is invariably (and infuriatingly:)) right!
As i understand it powerheads& filter outputs don't create linear flow, as you've indicated in your diagram, more a "cone shaped" output. Therefore your present setup means the flow form each is fighting each other. If you put your powerhead on the right so that the flow is all in the same direction it should help. It will also help with co2 distribution. it does seems weird that your fish are gasping at such low levels of co2. As Clive says be sure to check that your drop checker has bromo blue in 4dkh water, as not using 4dkh will give you false indications of co2 levels. I'm not familiar with Juwel filters but is there any way you could position your co2 diffuser inside the filter to achieve better dissolution and distribution?
Might be best to rip it all down and start again - know it seems a big step but sometimes it's easier to start again than spend ages sorting problems.
As ceg4048 says, sort out your co2, nutrients and change your water regularly and you should be alright
Have fun - hope this helps!
Matt
 
OK, had a look at that other thread. I guess that was Rhizo due to poor dosing technique and poor CO2, all exacerbated by poor flow.

It's bad enough when you don't have sufficient flow rating, but it's made even worse when your pumps work against each other. The output from the internal filter is doing absolutely nothing. It's energy is dissipated by the time the flow reaches the far end of the tank on the left. The Koralia's flow may reach the sediment but that's also a long way to travel. If you create movement to the left with the internal's flow then it's being canceled by flow to the right by the Koralia's flow. I always try to use the dimensions of the tank to augment flow. Use both filters to send flow across a short distance from back to front. You can even attach the output of the internal to a spraybar. The energy will probably still be anemic but at least it will be in the proper direction.

I personally think that all the internal filters are poor due to their limited pumps but I understand if one lacks sufficient resources to get a more powerful canister filter. Perhaps you can add another Koralia. Either way you need to play with the flow to get a better distribution.

As far as that dropchecker, have you tested the reagent? Put some reagent and water in a glass and put a few drops of lemon juice or vinegar in there just to make sure it turns green/yellow. Are you cleaning the dropchecker with an alkaline liquid? It just looks too blue to be real so both your reagent and sample water are under immediate suspicion.

For nutrients, either go to the tutorial section and read http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1211 or go to JamesC's http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/EI.htm to study nutrition. Lots of options.

Cheers,
 
O.k, I was going to do it this way.

flow2.jpg


But from what I'm understanding from Ceg, I should be doing it this way?

flow3.jpg


I don't know how to go about or if it's possible to attach a spray bar to the internal filter.
If I was going to go down the road of switching to an external, what would be a good filter to use and how would I go about removing the internal.
 
DEL,
I prefer option 2. Think about billiards. If I shoot the cue ball down the long dimension of the table I have to put more energy into it to get to return to me. If I shoot to the short side I have better manoeuvrability of the cue ball because I can get it to bounce a couple of times. The water will tend to rebound as it hits the front glass and head downward. AS you keep pushing you'll set up a flow pattern which will have a better spread.

I think the internal is too weak but you could easily attach a spraybar. You just would need to transition to the bar by attaching some hose to the output. The orientation of the internal's spud would be as you show in your first post (i.e pointing along the long axis of the tank) add some tubing that fits both the spud and the spraybar and then mount the spraybar with the suckers on the back wall. The holes would be oriented towards the front horizontally.

I've seen some threads about how to remove the internal. I believe it's just glued on with some silicone on the back edges so you would need a razor to cut the silicone.

I can't see the edges of your hood but you will need to penetrate one of the edges to get an external's tubing into the tank. Hopefully, there is enough clearance from the glass to allow this, otherwise you'd have to penetrate from the top, which could get messy depending on where the lighting fixtures are. I assume a Rio 125 is 125 L? That means you ideally need a filter rated at or around 1250LPH to comply with the 10X rule right? Isn't the Tetratec 1200 rated at 1200LPH? I reckon even something rated at 1000LPH will get you in the ballpark because you have that Koralia. All this depends on the space you've got downstairs I guess.

Cheers,
 
I've setup the tank as fig.1, simple because I don't have the right parts to make the internal powerhead face forwards. I've also put the diffuser plate much further down below the koralia to see how it does, the rattling hasn't started yet amazingly.

Think I am going to go down the road of using an external and rip out that internal now. I'm going to go with your recommendation of the TetraTec and fit it with a spray bar.

If I'm going about the process of changing the filters, what's the best way to do it? Run the 2 alongside each other for awhile then simply remove the internal? What kind of time period am I looking at?

BTW here's some pictures of the top of the tank, as you can see I don't use the lighting fixture that came with the tank.

Tanktop1.jpg


Tanktop2.jpg


I'm quite interested in trying the dry fertiliser dosing method, I read both articles, though the 2nd 1 was a bit easier for me to understand, from what I understand you can make "solutions" but can you add the chemicals directly to the tank? Or do they have to mixed with water 1st.
Also is there a good time for dosing? When I leave for work the lights and the CO2 are off and don't come on for several hours, so I do it when I get home, but depending on trains, there may only be an hour or 2 of "on" time left.

I tested the regeant for my drop checker like you said, all I had was malt vinegar, but it managed to turn the regeant bright yellow/orange. I'm using water from the fish tank in the drop checker, is this correct?
The drop checker gets cleaned along with the diffuser in a bleach solution.

I am quite worried about my CO2, I know some people say you should use food grade, but mines just bog standard stuff I got from BOC, it was the only thing I could get locally.
I have been playing with it a little today.

colour.jpg


That's the best I managed, though my male gourami (my fish indicator) was breathing slightly faster, so I'm kind of at my wits end truth be told.

I am thinking of giving the whole thing a kind of overal plant/landscape wise, thinking of getting rid of the bogwood since it takes up too much room and I'm very tempted to get rid of the valis.

I'm hoping to place an order tomorrow, so I can hopefully get started next week when I have a few days off, so I'm going to do a bit of shopping for.
  • External filter
  • Piping for it
  • Spray bar
  • Drop checker reagent (just incase)
  • Potassium Nitrate
  • Potassium Phosphate
  • Traces
  • Measuring spoons
I'm still unsure If I should bother getting any liquid CO2.
 
Sounds like the CO2 problem is solved! You should NOT be using tank water in the drop checker. Drop checkers should be filled with 4dkH and bromo blue (Aqua essentials sell this) to get a "standard" response. IF you do this i'm sure you'll see a better and more useful response from the DC that'll allow you to compare the response with others and around your tank - there is an article on here that'll help understand the DC and what it does. Remember the goal is to maximise plant growth and have happy livestock, not to turn the DC a specific colour. To demonstarte this i changed my reg yesterday so i'm just turning it up every couple of hours until my fish migrate to the surface, then i'll turn it down a touch. IN this way i know i'm getting the most CO2 into my tank for the plants without affecting my fish.
As far as ferts go i dose my dry powders straight into the tank. Don't worry about buying measuring spoons -the whole point of EI is that it is ESTIMATIVE, not exact! In your particluar case i'd dose first thin in the morning then when your lights come on your plants have access to lots of lovely nutrients, but i'm sure ceg4048 will be able to tell you better.
It'[s perfectly possible to run your internal alongside your external to maximise filtration and flow if you don't want the hassle of removing it, you'll just have 2 spraybars in the tank!
Hope this helps,
Matt
 
Starting to understand some of my fundamental flaws now, re-read both of the dry fertiliser guides and Ceg's CO2 guide.

So today I've ordered
  • TetraTec EX1200 External Filter (from what I understand, it should come with a spray bar)
  • 4 dKH Solution with Bromo Blue
  • Potassium Nitrate
  • Mono Potassium Phosphate
  • Trace Mix Plus
  • Dispensing Bottle 250ml
  • Storage Container
Thought about it and I'm going to try doing it with solutions, just seems a bit easier to me for measuring.

Bit of luck, the filter should arrive by tuesday when I have a day off so I can play around with it and head to my local shop if I need anything.

I'm now wondering if I've made any other glaring mistakes, like putting tap water in my drop checker.
Say with water changes, I use water from the cold tap, heat it up with a bit of water from the kettle, I used a sieve to stop any crap from the kettle going in the bucket. Then I add about 0.2ml of Seachem prime, mix it briefly then put it in the tank.
 
DEL 707 said:
...Think I am going to go down the road of using an external and rip out that internal now. I'm going to go with your recommendation of the TetraTec and fit it with a spray bar.

If I'm going about the process of changing the filters, what's the best way to do it? Run the 2 alongside each other for awhile then simply remove the internal? What kind of time period am I looking at?
OK, that's good that you're getting a proper filter. In this case I'd just run both for a month or so, that way you have that little bit of extra flow.

Thanks for showing the lighting fixture and that edge. Didn't realize you had this configuration.

DEL 707 said:
I'm quite interested in trying the dry fertiliser dosing method, I read both articles, though the 2nd 1 was a bit easier for me to understand, from what I understand you can make "solutions" but can you add the chemicals directly to the tank? Or do they have to mixed with water 1st.
As Matt says you can just add the powders directly to the tank. At the end of the day it's really up to you. Do whatever is easiest. Making life simple is actually more important than anything else.
DEL 707 said:
..is there a good time for dosing? When I leave for work the lights and the CO2 are off and don't come on for several hours, so I do it when I get home, but depending on trains, there may only be an hour or 2 of "on" time left.
No, it doesn't matter one iota. Again this is a simplicity issue. Dose whenever it's most convenient.
DEL 707 said:
I'm using water from the fish tank in the drop checker, is this correct?
The drop checker gets cleaned along with the diffuser in a bleach solution.
That explains the blue. Even when you rinse, a small amount of the bleach gets left behind and taints the sample driving it into the blue. This gives you a false low. If you didn't use bleach the tank water would give you a false high. The dropchecker is a pH test kit. Any cleaning product that affects pH will affect your readings. Any water sample that has other than neutral pH corrupts the reading. Get it?
DEL 707 said:
I am quite worried about my CO2, I know some people say you should use food grade, but mines just bog standard stuff I got from BOC, it was the only thing I could get locally.
Well some people are completely wrong. It's not necessary at all to use food grade or medical grade CO2, unless it's the most convenient gas product available at your location.
DEL 707 said:
I am thinking of giving the whole thing a kind of overal plant/landscape wise, thinking of getting rid of the bogwood since it takes up too much room and I'm very tempted to get rid of the valis.
There are loads of aquascaping options. Whatever you do, you should continue to scrape and scrub the glass to get rid of the algae on it. The algae that you can see produces more algae spores so you need to keep the population under control and do frequent water changes to curtail the population and to keep the tank clean.
DEL 707 said:
I'm still unsure If I should bother getting any liquid CO2.
It's always a good item to have in your armoury. Liquid carbon has algaecidal properties as well as providing a source of CO2. If you can afford it then it's good to have. It is toxic though so keep it away from kids.

Cheers,
 
It's no secret that this is toxic. Just like the ammonia or bleach under your kitchen sink. How close do you get to those?

Cheers,
 
The filter arrived today, had to DIY the spray bar a little since the pipping was too short so it was basically sitting out of the water.
Equiptment is looking a bit squashed in there, but hopefully should be better once I can remove the internal.

Baretank1.jpg


Removing the Valis was a bit mess, roots were everywhere, including in amond the Roseafolia, so when I pulled on the Valis the rosefolia came with it.

Speaking of the rosefolia, I'm not sure if I should dump it.

Baretank2.jpg


It's not looking too great at the moment, and it's covered in those white roots, I don't know the proper term.
Again I need help and suggestions on how to proceed from here.

Ideally I'd like to place an order only and get some more rosefolia, but I thought if I'm placing an order I might as well get more then 1 plant. But the tanks still a mess so I'm worried that I'm running before I can walk, hopefully I've got my flow problem sorted, but none of my chemicals have turned up yet (thank you Royal Mail), so no fertilisers or dropchecker regeant.

Can I get some suggestions on what my next steps should be?
 
Hi DEL,
Those are called aerial roots and most people find them very unappealing so just use scissors or your fingers and cut/pull those off. Removing these roots will also have the added benefit of improving the flow in between and around the plants. Granted, right now that is just an incremental improvement but right now I'm much more interested in changing your mindset. The sum total of the things you do add up to success or failure. It's up to you whether you throw them away or not.

What I love about plants is their tenacity. They hang on grimly to life to the last molecule. They'll grow through rock, cement, salt marshes, always looking for the good times just around the corner. They amaze me. Look at this example:
It's a shoddy photo but look at the plants in the background. They were in worse shape than yours. They had been sitting in the post for 3 week and were basically mush:
8505003186_5fa3bb4ebc_z.jpg


With good CO2+nutrients they rewarded me with this - Remember these are the very same ragged specimens that arrived in the post 7 months prior.
Two words symbolize this transformation. Hope, and Imagination.
That's how we make it to the future...
8394098837_0b255b11f7_z.jpg


The plants front right still need to be topped and replanted more towards the back. You can also use your fingers to preen those stem plants in the same way a bird preens it's feathers in order to disrupt the algal film on the leaf surface. Remove any dead/decaying leaves as these just feed the algae.

Get more plants..any plants, cheap or otherwise now that you have a clean slate. Check the swap/trade section for good deals. And keep reading....keep learning...


Cheers,
 
Thanks, I'll keep the rosefolia and see how she does.

The plant is the foreground, grows like a weed, much to it's credit, but unfortunately I can't plant it, everytime I do, the lower part of the plant dies and it simply floats to the top, so at the moment I've got it pinned under a rock which it doesn't seem to mind. I think I might get rid of it though, only reason it's there was my very amateurish attempt to hide the filter.

Speak of plants, I need a new plan and I want the experts opinions, since you've seen my attmpt at aquascaping.

plantplan-1.jpg


For no.1, I was thinking of cuting and replanting the Hygrophila along the back of the tank and keeping the rosefolia in it's no.2 spot.
For no.3 I have no idea, in the past those bits of bogwood occupied that space.
For no.4, I would like a carpet, plant, I think they look fantastic, but my last attempt didn't go so well.

Plantedtank220609.jpg


The glosso spread out at 1st, then it made a move upwards, then they got covered in algea and I have to remove it.

Unfortunately I lost my female gourami the other night, before I added the filter etc, not sure why, there were no markings, but the male had been hounding her and she lost most of her hiding places.
I've started dosing melafix in the hope of helping that cory with the white markings.
On the plus side, the cories seem to have a new lease of live with the extra flow.
 
Well three are so many options. Just have a look around at other tanks in the Journal or Aquascaping Sections to get ideas. In that midground #3 area it's probably best to have medium sized and slower growing weeds. Perhaps a few crypts, blyxa, Micranthemum umbrosum, even narrow leaf fern, combined with a few rocks or thin pieces of wood. P. helferi or Staurogyne repens are the less fussy of the carpet plants, so you could try those up front in area #4.

Have a study of Tropica's Plant List A-Z to get an idea of sizes and so forth.

Cheers,
 
Stroke of luck, all my chemicals have arrived.

Now for mixing the solutions, I'm using the Dosing Calculator, I need people to check my figures to make sure I'm right.

Potassium Nitrate
Tank Vol = 125l
Amount to add = 7 Teaspoons
Amount of water = 250ml
Amount to dose = 10ml

Posassium Phosphate
Tank Vol = 125l
Amount to add = 5 Teaspoons
Another of water = 250ml
Amount to dose = 11ml

Hope I'm reading this right and that the amounts are for every dose, not split through the week.

Here's 1 question, can these 2 be combined into 1 bottle, i.e 7 ts of nitrate and 5 ts of phosphate in 250ml of water? Then simply dose 11ml of the solution.

As for trace mix, I'm not quite sure how much to add since I don't have any scales. The website says to :-
Add 20g of Trace Mix Plus to 500ml of water. Then add 5ml per 100L, 3 times per week.

Also now that my 4 dKH solution with bromo blue has arrived, I'm ready to get my drop checker back in the tank, I took it out and kept my CO2 low when I reliased it was giving false readings.
What's thet best way to clean my drop checker before I add the new regeant?

Thanks for the suggestions on the plants, I'm going to have a look around, shame work called me and said they need me up until sunday, otherwise I might have been able to get some in this week.
 
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