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New Tank Advice required

Dave71

Seedling
Joined
24 Nov 2017
Messages
11
Location
Dorset
Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to vent my spleen a bit on my tank situation. So I’ve kept discus for years but have recently moved them into a new tank which is an Aquaone 300 with a 75l sump. I’ve also got 2 airstones in the main tank. The sump pump is 3600lph and I also have an internal filter 600lph.

The discus are the priority but I also want the tank to look good as its in our main living room in the house. The tank has a very shallow layer of sand at the bottom and a few plants in small plant pots with some of that bonsai clay soil stuff in them. The plants are giant vallis, normal vallis, amazon swords java fern and a few crypts.

I have used co2 injection and EI dosing in the past and it really made a difference, however this time it does not seem to have made any different and the plants are doing ok but not great and the crypts aren't doing too well tbh.

I’m using an intank diffuser and putting in about 1.5 bps, the ph is 7.3 and goes down to about 6.8-6.9 during the day. The kh is 4 which by my reckoning means the c02 is about 20ppm. I haven't wanted it to be greater at this time as like I said the fish are the priority. I have a drop checker on order. I have a tm2 pH monitor/computer but I have only been using it to measure the pH the co2 isn't plugged into it. The co2 is on a timer to come on 2 hours before the light and go off 2 hours after.

The hood still has the original marine lights which his two white t5’s and 2 blue, 39w. I haven't changed them as reading the forum it sounds like this will nt make a diff to the plants. Lights are on for about 13hrs a day.

Reading the forum I think the obvious advice will be to reduce the lighting and increase the co2. Which I may do over the weekend whilst I'm there to monitor the fish’s behaviour. Other than that do you guys have any advice let me know if you have any other questions.

The nitrite nitrate etc. is all very low.
 
Adding fertiliser wont harm your fish but will feed the plants but 1.5 bps second does not sound like it will have much impression on 375lts.
You can place the diffuser in front of your sump pump to get better distribution of the C02, you might not even need a diffuser & find feeding the C02 line directly into the pump works well enough.
Pictures are always good...
 
In addition to foxfish's advice, running airstones will remove CO2 from the water.

The kh is 4 which by my reckoning means the c02 is about 20ppm
This is also completely wrong. You cannot determine CO2 concentration level by a direct pH value. The pH in the tank is determined by other acids/bases in the water. The pH monitor cannot separate pH due to CO2 versus pH due to these other components.

Therefore you actually have no idea about the CO2 level in the tank.

As foxfish mentions, since we do not have any photos or details regarding what "...plants are doing ok but not great and the crypts aren't doing too well..." means, it is difficult to troubleshoot.

Cheers,
 
My co2 calculation was based on the info in this video, look at around 8 mins.
 
I tried putting the diffuser near the sump but the bubbles didn't get drawn in, will try putting the tube directly into the pump, thanks for the tip, will get some photos sorted soon,
 
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The java fern is new so still nice and deep green in colour
 

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My co2 calculation was based on the info in this video, look at around 8 mins.
Yes, I'm very familiar with the CO2/pH/KH chart, and the calculations that derive the data in the chart only works when the only acid in the water is due to CO2, so this is fine in a dropchecker filled with distilled water, however, in your tank, there are other acids/base in the water which affect the pH, therefore the calculation is skewed and it will always give you a CO2 concentration that is higher than reality.

Die adding certs raise the nitrate?
Yes, of course adding Potassium Nitrate will raise the Nitrate level in the tank. That is the main reason you are adding Nitrate.
Nitrate is not really a problem. Unfortunately this issue has been misunderstood for years, especially among discus owners/breeders who feed massive amounts of food, which produces massive amounts of fish waste. The toxicity generated is due to bacterial action on the waste and decaying uneaten food. The damage is NOT done by NO3. There are quite a few threads discussing this, a typical thread with data is provided here=> https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/at-a-loss-and-need-some-advice-please.39053/

Cheers,
 
Thanks, so now I've seen the pics of the plants, what advice as far as the co2 do u have, today I hoped it to 2bps.
 
They need nutrition & reduced light. (for the time being anyway)
Dave, I don't want to be responsible for the health of your beautiful fish so I think you need be careful with the C02 however you do have a sump & that will oxygenate the water & to be honest I doubt if you would be able to count the amount of bubble required to get anywhere near 30ppm of C02.
Normally you would be talking about 2-3 bps on a 100lt tank.
 
Nice fish Most of the plants you have there would do fine without co2 injection mate if the lighting was reduced, any reason why you have them on for 13 hours? If I had fish like them I would want to stare at them as much as possible as well but 13hrs puts a lot of stress on the plants as they will try and grow through that period consuming more ferts and need more co2.

The high temperatures associated with Discus tanks also speeds up the metabolic processes. If I were you I would try and find a lighting period you can live with, generally most people with planted tanks aim for around 7/8 hours. Maybe you could add some kind of low level lighting in there on knock some of the lighting down if separate switching is an option so you can see the fish and just go full lighting for a shorter period?

Take a look at the situation again with lower lighting after a couple of months. If you feel you need to go down the route of co2 injection with lowered lighting a drop checker is a must. Costs very little and can save your fish or at least warn you when you are getting towards dangerous levels.

The reason why Ceg says the kh/ph chart doesn't work is because co2 is acidic. When you measure ph you get the total of any acids in the water plus the co2 so you can wrongly think some of the acid is co2 when in reality it could be humic acid etc which plants don't use as a source of carbon. People measure the PH drop with ph meters to find co2 levels. You measure the PH before co2 switches on then monitor it throughout the lights on period. It's not absolutely accurate but fair to assume that the PH drop is down to co2 and not any other kind of acid.

For example, if your ph before co2 on is 6.8 and drops to 6.2 then you have less co2 than if your ph starts at 7.0 and drops to 6.2 if that makes sense. More of the drop is down to co2.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
To be honest, in my mind i would change the approach entirely.
First of all I see a lot of dead and damaged leaves. I would clean the plants to healthy leaves first.
13 Hours of light seems a lot. If you want that long period i would make the light very dim for the first and last 3 hours and only have plant growing amounts of light for 6 hours. The dim light will allow you to see the fish, which are fine in low light.
Having a sump, if it works OK, will be tough on your CO2 levels, but you dont need much CO2 with these plants, especially in lower light. Having them in small containers is possible but you'll need to feed them through the watercolumn, so i would dose ferts, but having low light means you can do with lower then EI amounts.
And i would do the 50% weekly waterchanges, to remove waste products your sumpt can't remove.
 
First of all I see a lot of dead and damaged leaves. I would clean the plants to healthy leaves first.

Yeah good shout Edvert, the plants are never going to repair themselves at this stage and the dying leaves are just releasing nasties into the column and being algae magnets.

The discus are the priority but I also want the tank to look good as its in our main living room in the house.

Its not an either or situation Dave, you can find a happy medium for both fish and plants which is what we all aim for. Luckily the plants you have aren't too demanding so a few slight changes are going to make a big difference to the health of the entire setup starting with the lights. When plants are happy they produce oxygen and remove waste products from the water column. Right now your plants are actually working against you because you’re pushing them too far with a long lighting period. The plants can't get enough carbon or nutrients to sustain this growth so they fall apart and die releasing waste into the tank. This waste reduces oxygen in the tank so the friendly bacteria can break it down and Discus love well oxygenated/clean water. That's why you have airstones in there to try and increase the oxygen content.

Now if you reduce the lights and bring the plants back on side it will have two positive effects, firstly the plants won't be adding genk to your water column, in fact they are going to remove some and secondly they are going to pump pure oxygen into the tank rather than the air from your living room through the stones along with whatever other crap might be floating about in there like furniture polish or air fresheners. Win win for everything behind the glass and just by reducing the light. Once you get to the point of your lighting is somewhere near a happy medium you can then look at what fertilisers and co2 you need to add, it's pretty much about matching your lighting up to the ferts and co2. More light gives less room for error as you don't have to be out much on co2 and fert before things go wrong quick.

I appreciate Nitrate is a worry and you've mentioned EI, I think it's been proven beyond reasonable doubt that you can't kill off fish with nitrate although a lot of text you have read on Discus will contradict that. I'm guessing though with heavy feeding of the Discus and rotting plants you probably have a fair amount of Nitrate in the tank anyway as a by product of the filtration process. Filters are no good at removing Nitrates only water changes, what is really good at removing nitrate is healthy plants so get them back on board and your worry around nitrate is over. The next worry is do I need to add some ;)
 
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