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Understandable point of view, but this is in fact just what a drop checker does.

Wait, I thought an "active" soil referred to it's ability to hold nutrients (CEC) rather than its store of adsorbed acid cations? So you can have a soil that has lost its buffering capacity but is still active. No?

It's a really good filter for larger aquariums. Not only is the media capacity in the FX6 huge, but the working circulation specification is also more honest and accurate. Combining both of these features will (over time) allow for plenty of turnover through lots of bio-media. Great that you...

I don't know who else would have beaten him up -- the only other Bristlenose leaves him well alone and there's nothing else looking ragged to imply fin-nipping. I've got some long-fin coreys and they're all fine. The biggest things in there apart from those are the rosy tetras :(. @Bradders I...

As I said just enjoy it and enjoy this forum. There are a huge amount of members that have a crazy amount of knowledge of the fishkeeping world on here and it's a great place to learn

Any buffer system will affect the alkalinity if the pH is within ~1 pH of the buffer's pKa (the same rule does not apply to bicarbonate buffer because of the gas nature of the "acid" part of the buffer). From your examples, phosphate would make a good buffer between ~6.2 and 8.2. For a...

Personally I wouldn't be tempted to add any fish for a good couple of weeks yet, the dark start is good for cycling the 'Nitrogen cycle' but it wasn't until you put those plants in 1.5 weeks ago that the Biorhythm would have kicked off, plus I can see that a lot, if not most of your plants have...

Didcot? Nice employer lets you run a tank. I’m not sure mine would let me, given the electricity use.

It is my workplace. I ask my boss and his answer was a fish tank why? People have plants on their deck. So is that a yes or a no and he did not answer so I just did it. He comes over from time to time to see how the shrimp are getting on. Most people when they see are very curious and come...

Nice one 👍🏻 thanks for the reassurance. Yeah i really want to try and keep it as simple as possible, but not get lazy with it, if that makes sense? I kinda regret actually posting this thread to be honest! It’s not a cheap hobby as everyone knows ( all dependant on what you want of course ) and...

I can second this. I have the 850, fully packed with material, running my 320l tank with CO2 reactor and it’s just perfect. I’d aim for a 250 or even 350 on this tank.

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Hi mate, I live in Canterbury so not far from you and as Darrel said I also have hard water. I've just learnt to live with it and I've just worked out what works and what doesn't. Some plants thrive and some just don't but that's the beauty of it, a bit of trial and error. I also only use tap...

I've been trying to eradicate Christmas Moss from my CO2 injected tank for about two years now and I never put any in there, it obviously came in with other plants. I remove all I can find but a couple of months later I'll find a batch growing out of a clump of Buce.

I don’t think you have a problem just yet - at least not an obvious one. The L Super Red will wither at the substrate level if it grows too dense and you skip trimming for a while. I can’t speak to the H Siamensis as I haven’t cultivated this plant before but pinholes are usually an Iron/...

I ended up disassembling both the sensor and the aquarium, so unfortunately there is no update on the aeration effect. However, I do not expect to get very different data from my previous experiment. I have rebuilt the sensor, and it has now a few modifications: I pump water inside the box...

TDS is not the problem Nope, your plants shows otherwise. You have aquasoil and dose NO3 25ppm, PO4 - 2.5ppm, K - 20ppm, thereby filled up with nutrient capsules is asking for a nutrients lockdown. imo

When using a pH pen (such as the 1 point pH drop method) the KH is not relevant. for example; for a tank with 'Easy Plants' I use a drop of 0.8. For Medium Plants a pH drop of 1.0 and for a High Energy tank a pH drop of 1.2 Works as a charm, and I have not come across any better method yet.

To come back at the TDS; My tapwater is 235... Could a too high TDS value cause this kind of trouble? At first i thought it would be PO4 or K related, but those values are good. So I'm a bit lost...

Not really, it depends on how you view potassium as an issue. It really varies. You also need to consider the overall parameters—potassium is just one big piece of the puzzle. For most hobbyists, if the plants are growing, that’s all that matters. Excess potassium doesn’t necessarily stop plant...

I think this is an important point to note. Low O2 levels combined with CO2 not escaping during the night suggest that gas exchange is very slow, most likely due to low surface agitation. Increasing surface agitation would help with both oxygen delivery and CO2 degassing during the night. While...

I went deep into this rabbit hole when I restarted with the hobby 2 years ago. I may have misunderstood the principles so am happy to be corrected: There are a couple of issues at play with trying to determine CO2 concentrations. Namely that you need to know your kh (and case in point being the...

Are you able to check the actual AC power usage to see if its coil is still taking the manuals quoted Wattage,. If its within spec then likely its ok , could be worth trying a new impellor and associate impellor parts, replacing the hoses, filter pads/sponges and giving all the internals a...

No, I don't. The discrepancy between the equilibrium with the atmospheric CO2 and the 3 ppm was one of the reasons I started running some gas-exchange experiments. If you look at my first experiment, the water left in the air without aeration reached 2.7 ppm after 24 hours, although the...

Ahh really appreciate your opinion. I thought we had over stocked it haha? I ended up buying a second filter for it in the hope i didn’t harm any fish or plants. Probably slight over kill on my part.

Thanks darrel I’ll definitely have a good read on those links you’ve shared. Funny you should mention about the frogbit, because for the last couple of weeks, it’s changed? The roots weren’t growing and i had what looked like diatoms showing agin on what little roots there were. In the last few...

Thanks Darrel For cleaning I use a gravel vac and clean up any poop etc off the substrate, I change 18 litres of water to make the tap safe equation nice and simple (1ml to 9 litres) which is a 32% change. I haven't done anything with the filters until the last change where I removed one of...

I think a drop checker is not meant to measure CO2, and certainly not to adjust the CO2. It is meant to get an indication of a possible deviation of the CO2 concentration. It is not called a drop 'checker' for reason. I'm convinst the best way for us hobbyists to adjust the Co2 is still by...

What a fab distraction. Is this a home office, or did you convince your workplace to let you have an on-desk distraction? If so, please tell us your ways...

Good to know, thanks Darrel. Hopefully, MTS, RCS, and some TLC will do the trick!

Thanks Ollie! He's half of what I thought was a dwarf variety (clearly not). I might swap him out for his smaller brother in the bathroom (delaying the problem, woo!), or a slightly less chunky syngonium😅 the roots are fantastically intertwined with the moss wall, mattenfilter, substrate and...

Writing on the PC and having the pics on the phone, it takes some time and a few edits to get it all in the post hehe

Hi all, It might be, it is certainly <"worth trying">. You tend to get a lot of black <"tea grout"> faeces with all crustaceans (including shrimps and Asellus), and I'm not sure the MTS (Melanoides tuberculata) will be interested in these, they don't have a <"lot of food value"> left. cheers...

I'm excited to see photos! Hope the fish all settled in well :)

I think you can normally find the dwarf varieties in supermarkets and Homebase, and repot that big fella to enjoy him outside the tank!

Tank looks great! Plants all look healthy from what I can see and it looks like sensible stocking you've went with, it looks much better than my first effort a couple of years back :)

Finally was able to snag a photo of the Kribs. They’re sneaky fish but seem to be getting more comfortable being out when the lights are one. Did some maintenance and thinned out the moss this weekend. House is starting to look like people actually live in it.

It has been a few months past 2 years, so the second iteration of this tank was undone. Previous journal. Issues with the previous setup: too much jungle, hard to make maintenance, I didn't trim the anubias and it got out of control, many plants pressed against the glass because of all the...

Hi Darrel, Would a combination of MTS and Red Cherry Shrimp be effective on keeping the sand clean? Cheers

Hi all, I'm a <"pest snail"> fan. I would never be without them. cheers Darrel

Hi all, <"Asellus aquaticus"> would be another "and/ or" option. They aren't to everyone's taste, but they are a very low maintenance tank addition and are <"detritus shredders">. cheers Darrel

Sounds like a ringing endorsement! Cheers

Hi all, I love mine <"Filter recommendations for 30l tank.">. Yes. <"Both">. cheers Darrel

Hi all, It is <"this bit">: It isn't a route <"I would want to go down">, but it goes back to some of Diana Walstad's <"original ideas">. The fluid could be anything carbon rich with <"lots of oxidisable material"> in it. Cheers Darrel

I have CO2 injection on the tank, I just did a rough measurement of the filters flow at 360L/h.

Hello all, I have a tank with fine (Unipac silver) sand. There are no plants planted in the sand (my tank is all floaters and epiphytes attached to driftwood) but I do get a fair bit of detritus/brown algae on the sand which is unsightly and can be difficult to suck up in the siphon. In...

I forgot to write something missing, I give 2 ppm potassium in every water change, so I give 2.92 ppm weekly.

If the tank is wider than 15 inches then I would definitely prefer two lower power fixtures over one higher powered fixture mounted at a height above the centre. Better coverage especially if you have plants or hardscape in the midground that would end up shading your carpet or shorter plants...

We consult with happi from time to time. It takes time to learn things but everything is fun. Some of them are close to happi's money meters. The money meters given by happi are: boron 0.030ppm zinc EDTA 0.015 manganese EDTA 0.085 iron 0.15ppm 0.09ppm iron EDTA 0.045 ppm iron dtpa 0.015 iron...

Hi all, It is a similar question to <"are these rocks suitable for my aquarium?"> If you already have hard, alkaline water? Then any limestone rocks you add won't make it any harder. It is the same with your substrate, once the H+ ions have all been replaced with calcium ions (Ca++) ions etc...

good morning here is my aquarium after spending a very hot summer. what do you think I wanted to add a little lawn a golden nasea and half in front of the blood roll in half?

My nano tank at work. Been running for about 3 months. It's a 30cm cube with lots of cherry shrimps in and a bit to many snails.

Is that an ozelot Echinodorus? Looks great. Good luck with the transfer.

Hi All This has been popping up on my insta. Has anyone looked into this , I cannot make heads or tail of it http://aquario.co.kr/noco2/neosoil-noco2.php

Thanks darrel, much appreciated. When i read that all the benefits of using aqua soil depletes quicker when using hard tap water, I kind of went into panic mode and thought I’d better get prepared now, than let it come up on me without any warning. I wasn’t made aware of this when we were...

This is what me and the wife have done. I know it’s nothing spectacular in comparison to what the majority of you guys n gals do! But for our first attempt, we couldn’t be happier 😁

Hi all, That is <"somewhere near"> what @Roland uses. This was his fertiliser list: I have no interest in <"optimal plant growth">, (or <"difficult plants">), but I'd say that this would be pretty near optimal. cheers Darrel

Ehhh... I still like the drop checker, I just try to play the devil's advocate sometimes. I don't even have a pH meter. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, I don't trust anything to give me a precise result, I just try to get used to the uncertainty.

Thank you for putting together this compilation of your findings. From what I gathered, your current understanding is that many issues with fertilization come from excess potassium. I personally find it very hard to identify plant deficiencies, what would be a way to observe if one has gone too...

As requested

...they give values for some of the other basic anions. I'm not a CO2 user, but if I was? I'd be keener <"on using a drop-checker">. I know @LMuhlen isn't a <"drop checker fan">*, so they may be able to add some practical experience of using a pH meter. *Edit <"Scrub that"> cheers Darrel

Hi all, What Ollie says, just remove them. cheers Darrel

First of all, hello

Our tests add acids to the sample until the pH drops a set amount. So anything that prevents the pH from dropping will increase the value, therefore the test measures alkalinity. It is expected that carbonate species will be the most relevant source of alkalinity, so it is a reasonable way to...

If the peace lily will stay ( And I think it should, it looks great) then maybe some more selective pruning to stop the leaves reaching the light is the only course of action. It's obviously a larger growing variety with nice big leaves like that ( there are dwarf ones available) so this will...

Hi all, just a small post because I'm incredibly impressed with the size of my peace lily - most of the leaves on the lefthand plant are 30cm long at least. I've had the lid on to help with humidity, but now the leaves are burning on the lights - what to do? It's definitely not a bad problem to...

I would also not worry too much considering it is a new tank being cycled. Who knows what those pesky microbes are up to? They may change their oxygen consumption pattern daily for all I know.

Looks like a great group to look after this fantastic resource!

Thanks all!! ❤️

@megwattscreative, I rinsed all the sand and gravel before putting it in, but it's not really feasible to do with the soil - I'd lose so much material, plus it would destroy the soil structure that I have tried to maintain. I could tear the tank down and start again, but I'd rather not. It has...

Hi all, Welcome to UKAPS, I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. As the other have said bacterial issues are difficult to treat and often a sign of some underlying problem, all you can really do is try and keep levels of ammonia etc as low as possible and dissolved oxygen levels high. I add...

Hi all, Probably wise. cheers Darrel

Hi all, We don't know where the "3 ppm CO2", (and <"30 ppm CO2"> extrapolated from it) came from. Do you know @hax47 ? All the references go back to <"George and Karla Booth"> <"Estimating CO2 injection rates in ml per minute"> The "three ppm" figure is widely used, even in the scientific...

Hi all, I am setting up a 40l cube and will be doing a tinted water setup for it (not full blackwater). I have 3 types of wood I can use in there, here they are in the tank: Sorry the photos aren't the greatest, couldn't work out how to take them without so much reflection! I am probably...

Hi all, I would adjust the light intensity and duration until you get to ~8 mg / L dissolved oxygen (DO) towards the end of the photoperiod. If you don't add CO2 you may find that the pH will rise rapidly as photosynthesis depletes the available CO2. I don't supplement CO2, so I use <"water...

Hi all, Active substrates (substrates that exchange a H+ ion for a calcium ion (Ca++) from the water column) will be exhausted a lot more quickly in harder water, they will stop having a water softening effect, but it doesn't really matter. It would stay "active" for longer, have a look at...

Indeed. Once everything is bedded in, then it will be interesting to see if it gets to full saturation. More importantly, how that carries forward over night and next morning.

Hi all, I've seen a lot worse. It is a robust system, and that is what is important not the "lack of water changes" etc. <"No tech nano">. Yes, but you would need to add fertiliser eventually. I never break my tanks down, so the lab. tanks have been set-up for ~10 years. This tank had a very...

Sunday morning was pretty quiet. Id say there were maybe 20-30 vendors in total, so it was a little small ( which I can totally respect considering it's the first one), and I'd say the best display was Zoomed's 'paludarium' in one of their Lowboy tanks, which surprised me as they are obviously...

Who knew Dumbledore had an aquarium?! 🤷‍♂️ 😂

That makes sense. Are you using CO2? If so then 600-800l/h will give you around 8-10x turnover which should be sufficient for that volume of water. If you are low-tech then I'd go with around 250l/h+, which is around x3 turnover.

Hi all, That is very relevant, along <"with it being a tall tank"*> (I assume it is this tank?). The tank dimensions, with the 50 cm height, means that you have a relatively small surface area to volume ratio and the smaller gas exchange surface area, unsurprisingly, reduces gas exchange. If...

I had the filter running on a much larger tank then moved house and down sized the tank but not the filter. I turned the filter flow rate down a bit for the smaller tank.

I did run a test using an airstone in my 100L aquarium. Let it run for a few hours, and my last measurement was around 7.6mg/l Dissolved Oxygen. They certainly do work!

Hands down the best filters I've ever used are the Oase Biomasters, I had 2 running my 700 litre tank and they are great

I think you hit the nail on the head with this. Absolutely i don’t want to get bogged down with the science behind it all, and trying to create problems for myself. I just got a little panicked when i started reading about aqua soil and hard water! I’m going to put that behind me now, and...

Even if we say there there is a 50% loss, that would still be 925l/h which is well over the rough guideline of x10 turnover in a tank with CO2 injection. Assuming you're running CO2 injection, I would just be aiming for a filter with around 600-800lph. Any reason why you went with so much...

Obtaining a water report will let you know more about what you're working with, obviously if you have a test kit you can test your water to get a rough idea of some of your parameters. Some people use tap water, some people use RO water, some people use rain water, there's lots of different ways...

Hi @Jimmyc use the below tutorial. https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/using-stem-plants-as-a-filtering-aid-at-start-up.62966/

Thanks. I won’t be that person 😁, but i do tend to jump in the deep end, before learning to swim! Which tends to put me out of my comfort zone at times. I guess my next step would be to obtain a water report, and try to make sense of it all. Ultimately, my aim is to grow plants to put it simply...

I stopped drop checks a while ago. Get cup of water from aquarium, wait 24 hours, -1 pH point from that. Drop checker will show you that it is yellow, but I dont notice any bad behaviour from fish. I even tried -1.2 points on my nano garden where dropchecke goes almost colorless :D, all shrimps...

Regarding this topic. I have a lot of surface movement in my aquarium (6500l/h), but recently I added two big air stones in my sump and they turn on 1 hour before lights go off (CO2 was off by that time) and it runs during the night till 9 AM. I think I can see more positive effect on fish they...

have turn the lights back down to70% the algae has increased and things were growing well at 60%.

Welcome! Cory's are some of my favourite fish, I currently have some bronze Cory's and another variant I have forgotten the name of.

So, the exact (first pass, non-stringent) process is summarised below. The DO probe was re-calibrated before every test using the same method. With a slight adjustment to surface agitation via the lily pipe, you can see a healthier start to the day regarding DO - a 26% increase. Sun 08:30 -...

The spec of the filter says 1850L/h but I expect that at least when it was new I was getting about 60% of that so 1100 L/h but I think I am getting about half that at 500, the flow is significantly lower than it has been.

I noticed that clay does separate from water over time - if not agitated it creates one of those higher and lower density liquid viewy things - I think you just need to do a lot of water changes. Run a secondary filter stuffed with high density filter pads. Should clear up. Just re-read you...

You are very welcome :) Don't worry, it's the sort of hobby where you will always have more things you can learn - whether you've been doing it 2 months or 20 years. I don't tire of people like you, I only personally tire of the people who put lots of live fish in a tank and then start asking...

Thanks, i appreciate the fact you have taken your time and given some reassurance. I’m located in Herne Bay, Kent, which i know we have hard water? The thing is, I’m not the brightest spark out there 😁, so it’ll take me some time to even make sense of it all. Currently my planted tank is looking...