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I totally agree. Ive come to another solution for myself. I have no surface movement really but i have duckweed floating around which seems to keep my surface perfectly clean as it travels.

As has been said,there is no problem with what youre doing but chucking in more ferts will only mean youre wasting them. If there is no reason to doing it why do it? Im sure you can dose 1/4 teaspoon the same way you can dose 1/2. Just try and stick to the original recipe as much as your...

There are somethings people do to stop it frome reapearing but whats there wont go away unless you get rid of it physically. You can up your co2 or lower the ammount of light. Also if you have a lot of waste in your tank you should reduce it.

If there is no pearling even on higher levels of the tank then something is wrong. I would say a nutrient is limitting. You might even waant to dose Ca for that matter. Those bubbles you see on the Amazon Swords, they are O2. I dont think co2 or light are the problem here, at least not the main one.

All sounds good. How many bubbles per second are you doing? We can try and estimate your light. Do you know the distance from lights to soil? Also are the 4 bulbs t5?

I dont think its not enough light with 4 tubes and gooc reflectors. Are you adding Mg? A video of your co2 distribution system could help. Dont forget to show surface agitation if you do it. Also bps, reactor type and anything else.

Both deseases could be related. Tumours dont just appear for no reason, even though we dont know why they appear. I would put him to rest.

I think Diana says the right height in her book so that you dont get anaerobic conditions in it. She also mentions the height of the sand on top of the soil.

I think soil is a fine substrate yes, for most any tank. You dont need to pay the price of ada amazonia. Even inert gravel can work in any tank.

Probably something in the water source. For the future I would add floating plants to your tank.

Yes but her method is not only about soil. Its also about adding nothing else (just fish food) to the tank and keeping it as a natural system.

I agree its a great book but. You should see the whole picture. If you try this method your plants will have co2 from decomposition yes but only up to maybe around a year. After this period you could also start running out of certain nutrients. I dont think its a method for the long term or for...

I had a smile on my face all through it. You're a good writer!

Many things can effect the redness of Althernanthera. Main one is light. But also iron(high), nitrates (lowish), co2 (high) or maybe even phosphates and also water hardness. Its not an easy path to red plants.

Looks Great man. Plants look so solid and not on the blink of catastrophe like many ADA tanks with too much light. How many water changes on this one? And how much RO water? Do you know how hard your water is?

Its just an atomizer stuck to the wall with suction cups. The wall has a hole where the pump outlet is. The flow just breaks the bubbles from the surface of the ceramic before they become bigger. I use very little co2. One soda stream bottle (les than 500g) lasts me months.

http://vid1376.photobucket.com/albums/ah5/nanananannanananananan/Mobile Uploads/VID_20160121_110304_zpsiwo4qarl.mp4 Hi all, I just wanted to post a short video of my co2 diffusion method. I think its quite efficient. Its only an in tank atomizer which i put on the outlet of my filter. Hopefully...

I agree with Darrel. I live in Wiltshire and Ive used tap water most of the time. Ive never been able to keep shrimp alive for long periods and fish also eventually die. I dont use prime so Im thinking of getting some. Also the water here is very hard so I dont think you can get much worse.

Reduce light intensity and or photoperiod to a minimum of 5 hours daily. If you can reduce temperature to 22-23 degrees that would be a good idea too. Do not reduce co2. You want to keep all the plants in a sort of lethargic state where they don't grow much but also don't suffer.

But, it can be quite important. Specially if the aim is to maintain the healthiest tank possible e.g if you're keeping Discus at the same time as reducing water changes. Sorry for digressing. We all want to work less don't we. For example: If you only keep a tank with lemna minor you probably...

No. Maybe you had a bit of surface scum before that would trap bubbles at the surface. This can be very thin and sometimes invisible. Maybe adding more plants helped with the health of the tank and the surface film went away. Maybe it was just a water change and your tank maturing. Can be many...

I've got one thing bugging me for some time now. Do typical true aquatic plants like egeria, vallisneria etc leach as many chemicals into the water as other more high tech plants like hc or althernantera? The reason I ask is because in a fast growing tank with co2 and harder plants it seems like...

The matrix is sucking us all in:(. Someone has been right all along.

Bubble size is different.

Maybe more oxygen makes the whole process of CO2 transport/excretion more effective as compared to low o2.

The more o2 there is in the water the higher co2 concentration you can keep without fish issues. There are many more things to consider as well but this statement is true. It doesnt mean there is no limit to how much co2 you can inject obviously.

No need to lower co2 really. Maybe more surface movement.

Yes your ph values do make sense, as explained by others.

Not if dosing EI:p.

Thats good, as long as you dont introduce them with a lot of CO2 in the tank water. Now this is a big heated debate. What is more accurate DC or ph drop? Well I can tell you what I think and I've tried both. I really hate dropcheckers, because of a few things I wont get into now. But, if you...

That only means your co2 is not very high. As you drip your water the co2 will just "evaporate" from it. Now, when you throw your fish into the tank from the holding container which supposedly has the same water then you're in big trouble. It's happened to hundreds of people including myself...

Your CO2 must be off and degassed before you introduce any new critters to the tank. Shrimp will act strange i.e move too much and violently aorund if co2 is too high.

Interestingly Crypts, sword, vallis, and a few others almost always do well. Did you know they can use bicarbonates from the water as a carbon source?. If you only use carbonate loving species you dont even need to supply co2.

Hydrocotyle sp. japan, Marsilea Hirsuta, Crypt Parva etc etc.

Then lower your light levels. Or you can lower the "speed" of your tank by using a limitting method like pps pro etc. Basically your light and co2 levels are not in equilibrium.

I am not saying you should but you can actually add more co2 if you really wanted. How? Add more surface ripple. This means more o2 and also more offgassing of co2 which could mean more stable levels of co2. Once you have more o2 and more stable offgassing of co2 the you can actually add more...

Welcome Dernon. I dont believe adding floater will increase the co2 in your tank at all. Youve got a few options though: 1) If plants are the easy type then you can up your surface ripple in order to keep the supply of co2 stable from the atmosphere. This way plants never run out of it, even...

Nice tank! A. Reineckii seems to have a co2 problem just like mine. Twisted, thin, not great looking leaves means at some point it had more light than it could handle with the co2 it had available. This is the pickiest plant in my tank.

Looks like you need a new regulator I'm afraid.

You say the co2 is comming out of the little hole? If so then youd need to open the regulator to fix it but it might not be an easy fix as a diaphragm might be broken.

No worries man. Every now and then I go back to thebarrreport.com and find new info that´s actually quite old. Maybe its me or maybe they release the information slowly. I think he is writing a book, really hope so.

http://www.barrreport.com/forum/barr-report/co2-enrichment/4774-co2-in-situ-meter-measurements-real-time-data-on-localized-co2-ppm-readings

Lower your ammount of light and/or add more co2.

http://www.barrreport.com/forum/barr-report/co2-enrichment/4774-co2-in-situ-meter-measurements-real-time-data-on-localized-co2-ppm-readings

I guess it needs time to grow more. Chop off the longer strands.

Do you inject co2, do ferts and have good light? All these might help also.

High light, high flow, some organics (so less water changes), some co2 but lower levels (less than 20 ppm), this all might help it appear.

Being weeping moss in the first place could help;).

http://www.co2art.co.uk/collections/complete-co2-systems

On word: expensive.

Yes troi, but I see some drawbacks for a newbie when using a rich substrate. 1 is the starting phase. You need to do many water changes and newbies should know this. 2 is if using soil. This can be very messy and mess up the tank specially when moving plants around. 3 it can be expensive 4 Most...

Ive had low tech tanks with very high nutrients in the water and 0 algae. Maybe I just didnt trigger it. Anyways you can just add some ferts to the water once a week and forget. Dose 1/10th of ei or so.

Plants need ferts. Lack of ferts can cause algae. You can try root tabs but ideally you want to dose once a week macros and micros. Another option is to use a nutrient rich substrate or soil underneath the gravel. They all have pros and cons. So up to you. I would dose the water column. Sorry...

http://tropica.com/en/plants/ Up to you.

Growth looks quite healthy which is main thing in the start. Youve selected easy plants which is a clever choice. If you spread out that sagitaria you can have a nice carpet. Trim a lot off the moss. Try planting stem plants in diagonal rows/groups from back to front making them fatter at the...

Thats crypt parva, one of the slowest growing of all. The good thing is that it can survive and thrive on very low ferts and co2. But it will benefit from addition of these two.

Some people see a benefit but its only because external light is hitting the tank whilst co2 is off. So sometimes it can be a solution but a bad one.

Yes

Be careful with that thing. Its very dangerous. If you want to prepare 1 litre of (2%) solution add the following ammount to approx 1 litre of RO water (2/50) × 1l=0.04l=40 ml (of the 50% solution) If you wang to prepare 5 litres of (2%) solution It'd go as follows: (2/50)× 5l=0.2l=200 ml (of...

Add them before co2 comes on is how I do it.

What about if we took medium co2 and added high light. Compare that to having medium light and adding high co2. No one knows which will win. Why? Because starting values are aleatory the same as for the tropica paper.

Yes, but this statement is just oversimplified. Yes this is totally right. The difference between a low tech and a high tech is actually that. In a low tech CO2 is the main limitting factor and in a high tech co2 becomes less limitting. Light cannot be treated in the same way and that's why you...

Everything that comes with the addition of co2...

I think it can hence the reason why we sometimes see BBA exagerated on the driftwood. If its not that then the driftwood makes for a great attachment surface.

I've never contradicted what you guys say. Light drives photosynthesis? Yes, of course. I'm asking you to think outside that. What makes a high tech a high tech? Is it the ammount of light? Your example given doesnt fall under any category because obviously the first thing you need to give a...

Cant see pics:hungover:.

Rigid thinking once more. Everything affects photosynynthesis not just light. Can you make a plant grow ten times faster by adding more and more light in a non co2 tank? No. Can you do it by adding artificial co2 (and keeping light the same). Yes. Sorry for the double psot.

Rigid thinking once more.

It depends you can do many things: 1: lower light thus reducing metabolism and co2 need from the plants. Notice I agree light drives co2 demand but this is not what Im debating as this is not a black or white thing. Light can be at many values without determing if its high or low tech. Would you...

Another thought: if its light that drives metabolism: What if we have a tank without co2 and x ammount of light. Then we start adding co2 to that tank. Is the metabolism going to be the same? No, it will be up to 10x higher. The phrase light drives metabolism is true but what makes the biggest...

You seem to have a very rigid view of things. Which is fine. But you also cannot negate that co2 addition makes the biggest difference in plant growth. This is not semantics, thus determining if a tank falls under low tech or high. Obviously there are middle grounds.

To roamaster: Most co2 injected tanks actually have less light than many well kept non co2 ones? How can this be if light drives co2 demand? Well its not that simple. Plants can also use resources better when light is high (no co2) compared to low light if given enough time to adapt. Now there...

Its not about light, its about co2. Light can be quite high in a low tech as it can be in a high tech. There is a shared area of light intensity for both methods. Yet what makes the difference is wether there is co2 injection or not.

As I said at the start, its just a safe measure. Not every tap water has the same co2 levels.Does not apply if injecting co2 like i suppose you are. Only for nn co2 tanks. Its a theory thats all. It costs nothing to do right.

What about if you do it right before lights on? CO2 levels will peak right before photosynthesis starts and will then drop off. Bad thing.

You can do the w. c. with your lights on no problem but outside the photoperiod and better after photoperiod or in the last minutes of it. Not good to do it before photoperiod unless its a few hours before so that excess co2 has time to gass off.

Plants look nice but you can make it look a lot better. Leave just one pump with an adapter for the outflow that blows the water to the surface which will eliminate any surface residue. This should be quite easy to find. Low tech dont need a lot of flow. Get rid of all the extras you dont need...

I think those other substances that affect ph kh equilibrium are basic substances like silicates or phosphates. Anything that affects ph without changing kh. This is a good question that also buggs me. Acids affect ph but also kh so they should fall into the equilibrium, but in reality acids...

One word: youre running out of ferts. Lack of ferts can cause algae. Dose NPK and micros. Maybe too much light also.

We dont know anything about your tank really. Would be good to know photoperiod, light intensity, what ferts you dose, and a photo. You can do a wc right after lights are off.

Its because of the co2 present in your tap water. As you change the water youre introducing high levels of co2 into your tank. This is not good for your plants (even if it sounds counterintuitive). wHY? Because the machinery in your plants have adapted (in a low tech) to low levels of co2. If...

Great design!. I feel like something of a darker background would make more mysterious.

Main thing here is plant selcetion. Crypts, ferns and mosses, anubias, certain stems, water wisteria, vallis, hydrocotyle, etc etc. Use tropicas easy category. then fertilizers (add them and dont relly on fish food). Do water changes after photoperiod. Not when lights are on. Keep some surface...

When I go on holiday I leave my photoperiod on 4 hours only. This way you minimize the chance messing up your tank too much. I just returned from a two week holiday. Plants look healthy and grew a lot but had a bit of algae due to co2 pump falling out of place, so co2 was probably quite bad but...

You can/should only increase photoperiod so much. Up to maybe 8 hours top (I would only do 7 hours or so). After some weeks you can start increasing light intensity but remember AR is a slow grower so will take time to show results. Ive noticed main thing with this plant is CO2 if you are adding...

It doesnt look like BBA to me. I had this also and I beleive its due to substances being leached from the driftwood. It might be some sort of fungus.

Maybe you can try here. Just read the last few pages.

;)

Nice design. Are you using two difusers?

Nothing to worry about if you are dosing true EI levels of ferts. You can always dose more if youre in doubt. The soil will leach its nutrients so not to worry.

I would take out the big sword plants and replace it with finer leaves plants. Its ggot a lot of potential.

Co2 diffusion is really bad in that tank. You should see microbubbles going near the substrate. It also looks like you might have a nutrient imbalance. Are you sure you are dosing true EI?

Wow thats a good deal.

There is quite a bit of info on soil, light and co2 at thebarrreport.com. but its qite scattered. I think ADAs magic formula can be explained with a few points: 1) High level of maintenance carried out by the staff 2) Rich soil and lean water dosing, just for ferns and mosses to have something...

My tank has got a built in filter. I took an atomizer and put it in front of the output just by sticking the atomizer on the tanks back wall in the same place of the output flow. It gives out micro bubbles, maki g it as efficient as an inline atomizer. Its so simple but the best idea I ever had...

The diffusion method will also make a difference on how long it lasts.

I dont think you need one but it all depends on how much accuracy in the co2 control you need. Are you going to use a diffuser? or a reactor? It will probably be good enough for a diffuser. If I were you I would go the soda stream way which is much cheaper in the long run and you only have to...

No. Drop checkers measure what is in the water. So if it has "dissipated" its not in the water so drop checker does not pick it up. As long as enough time has passed for the DC to be in equilibrium with the water of course.

No worries, its just a debate. We are allowed to say almost anything. This is a biggie I think. I think mist works very very well for some plants like HC or eleocharis acicularis which interestingly enough are used a lot by Amano. Yet Althernanthera Reinecki mini shows some co2 deficiencies in...

This is the idea, although measuring plant biomass is slower to achieve and chances of things changing in your aquarium are higher. For one plant biomass wont be identical. But if you measure O2 in two or 4 conscutive days you wont have this problem. I think the more complex an experiment is...