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I think you meant to say anybody who doesnt have experience using a drop checker as opposed to dunces but thats just semantics.

I know it wastes a bit of CO2 but i have an airstone just under the intake to a powerhead on 24 hours a day.

If there is this much build up in the pipes do the innards of the filter get covered in goop also ? E.g The impeller and tubing on the motor part of the cannister. I have taken one of my filters off line and am cleaning it at the moment. Im going to get bottle cleaners in the morning and a piece...

I looked at this as indepth as possible, some of the boffins from the royal horticultural society reckon a bit of green light energy doesnt go astray ( but i decided from the specs they published that the advantage was academic in a tank ) .. many planted tank folk use any old light with great...

James i think i screwed up i have bought Spagnum moss from the bonzai shop and not Spagnum moss peat. I was planning to use it with some Osmocote which i have on order. How thickly or thinly did you spread the osmocote ?

I love Tetras but as a beginner i hated them as they are such proxy for the state of their environment even stress factors , anything goes wrong and they croak it. I can tell if something is wrong in the tank just watching how they behave . e.g swim together or apart ,, hide etc. Good luck...

I started to read up on this and found this in JamesCs guide : Staghorn " Description Grows in strands that branches out. Looks a bit like deer antler. Black to grey/green in colour and sometimes has a red tint. Cause Low CO2 and/or poor water circulation. A tank with overfed fish and...

That is new to me and probably where i show my " noobishness " if its the case. In the end though Algae from the best i have been able to tell so far is a sign the plants themselves are not doing well for some reason. I had algae in my new tank and once i took out the algae infested leaves and...

My guess will be that the pros here will focus on the imbalance between CO2 / light and the lack of Fertz. Without doing the numbers ( as i understand them ) its quite imbalanced especially the lack of added fertilizers for the co2 you are putting in and less so the light ( sounds about 1.2WPG...

Well i planted the ET about 3cms apart and while it is thickening up a little it is mostly spreading. Im not sure i want to plant it more dense than that ?

Hi, I have noticed that a lot of the plants i have that send out runners e.g E Tennelus ( spelling ? ) are sending their runners in a straight line generally speaking across the longest dimension of the tank. This means I am ending up with a lot of " rows " but not very much thatch work if that...

I dont have any experience with the Arcadia unit but i understand that both the Arcadias and Hagens share the same flaw in that there is not individual reflectors on the lamps. I decided against the Arcadia but would have gone with it had it used this individual lamp reflector ( it would have...

Yey ! My Hagen Glo T5ho luminaires arrived today. I am very impressed. I am taking photos and what not and will post a review with piccies later. First impressions are very good. A set is now sitting on my 180 liter and the plants are loving them too :D

When you say add to the " mixture " , just to confirm you are putting the reference in one chamber and the indicator in another ? No that should not happen the indicator solution should be blue.

Because of the associated PH drop that is quite sharp ( i deduce especially if injecting co2 ) given James had to do daily water changes. Im not sure how low the PH can go as a result but perhaps plants wont like the very low PH. Besides i have filters cycling at the moment getting ready so i...

On a bit of a tangent but what do you think it would do in a tank filter instead of carbon ,, if i understand the implications of it taking phosphates out of the water it might well take all nutrients out too ?

Thanks James, Im keen not to do a water change every day to be honest, its just wasting water ( i recycle all tank water for plants etc but would just end up pouring it down the drain which is a bit more wasteful given i live in a near dustbowl ). I take the point about you not know what...

Thanks for the answer , it seems clear that inorganic bacterial activity in the substrate should be encouraged to break down waste and turn it into nutrients as opposed to relying on the dosed water to soak downwards into the substrate. I think this is where a bit of "spagnum moss " or mulm...

So basically this can be achieved if one soaks akadama in nutrients for a week in addtion to a solution to stop it effecting the water chemistry ( KH )once introduced ? I wonder James if you have a view on this also , what do you dampen the KH effect with and how would ferts in that solution...

I was asking it as a question :D To put it in laymans terms can water dosed ferts permeate down through thicker grained substrata ?

I lose the same or more here in Spain with all the heaters plugged out in the summer.

Yes thats the fella. My point though is that that rock wool is inert and yes while it can be permeated i would imagine that its just as easy for nutrients to permeate the larger grained sands and substratas ? What im not sure is if Brownian motion / circulation can extend down into substrata...

Thanks Ceg. It seems to boil down to if dosing PMDD or EI then buying enriched substrata is just a waste of money all it. As i said its not that I balk at the cost ( ill gladly shell for something that i believe will make a difference and if not going the EI route it does untill the supply is...

Thank David ( and James ). How much latitude in your experience do you get on missing a dose with " nutrient rich substrata.. is it just a fail safe if you miss one day or could you go on holidays and forget having to worry about getting the neighbour in ? I notice that a lot of people who use...

I am kind of surprised there inst more debate about this , i didnt find any in the search function but that Barr report is sort of ground shaking when i consider that a lot of people are prepared to fork out a lot of money for Amazonia etc that could in theory be better spent on C02 / nutrient (...

Our LFS is a breeder , ill wager a lot of shops breed them in the tanks " out back" ?

Paaah, one of the shops here in Madrid charges 8 quid. The mark ups are stooopid over here but there are some amazing shops especially for plants ( 25% the cost of tropica ). I have noticed they were full of info and tips ( on what to buy ) untill i started talking about Tom Barr , UK aps and...

On Purigen and i know we are drifting a bit from the op question ,, but ,, Seachem are adamant not to use Purigen with water conditioner that has " slime coat " properties such as aquatan.. my lfs guy is adamant thats to trick you into using prime but well hes the lfs guy and thinks nutrients...

Did it take the cat long to cop on ? Ours put their paws up on the bottom of the tank and walk on their hind legs along the floor trying to catch the fish, this is followed by a period of sitting back in confusion only to repeat the exercise. :lol:

I cant answer the question on carbon , but " potentially " suggest an alternative in Seachem Purigen. I have not tested the notion but Seachem and a small number of reports i have read on it suggest if doesnt remove trace elements. I havent tested it deeply though , i just popped it into the...

Where did you get the HC from ? Is that melt due to changing paramaters ?

Gotta be honest and say i was thinking blimey ,,, wonder what his fish tank was made off :lol:

Just have to echo this has been an awesome thread , i really like the Osram 880 look overall it seems the most natural to me so im gonna order them now for the stack of Hagen Glo T5Hos winging their way to me :mrgreen:

Given that tank went from about .5 WPG to 6 to me its experimental. :mrgreen: I have white stones in it too in order to see any algae growth early on :D Biggest problem is keeping up especially with trace which i have been steadilly increasing.

Keep an eye out for them on ebay uk, i have seen some pretty cheap second hand deals on there. Fertz again to ebay, theres a guy on there called alchymest who is qualified chemist ( most helpful and does know what hes at that i can see, msds supplied etc ) sells dry powders well cheap. Co2 ...

Sorry to hear but i am a bit curious about how exactly the fish died , did he get into the DC fluid bulb ,, how wide is the kneck on your DC ?

I recall an acquantance wasnt watching where he was going and walked into a manhole that was accidently left open, won a ton of money. Its a shame really when you think about it that the warnings that need to be headed get mixed up in the ones that are just anti sue us driven . Some People...

I looked at ways of making water changes easier and bought the following : 1. 2 x Wheelie bins of sufficent size, although 1 will do as the second one is for storing waste EI water for house plants. Any contianer of sufficent volume on wheels will do or even a big plastic dustbin if your happy...

Thank, didnt realise i was entering an argument :D Just roughly trying to gauge by adding t5hos x2 how much more light i was adding as I deducted relatively speaking that I was adding more juice with T5hos than t8s of the same wattage. Im not into it enough to get a PAR meter :shock: but...

Yes it makes sense , wavelength being the inverse of frequency, been a while since i used my physics :D Out of curiosity what lumens value .. since i gather WPG is kind of defunct depending on the efficency of the bulb 15W in one is not the same in the other e.g. t5ho @30 W gives more light /...

Thanks Ceg 4048, very interesting reading. I can see now also how from the spectral graph you can take a stab at the kelvin value of the bulb. In this case the Blue portion of the bulbs spectral graph contains most of the volume so the energy appears low frequency or high kelvin ? This implies...

Hi, I havent bought the luminaires yet, I am just looking into this at the moment before ordering them for the tanks. Im learning and unlearning. When i first put plants in the tank years ago the they all didnt look so great after a while. The shopkeeper told me it was because we had a...

Is that less efficient ?

Nelson, Thanks , the legs are the bit i was worried about ( so was thinking about hanging it instead ) do you find any flicker with it ( know the ballast type ? ) and aside from the legs do the reflectors and build quality seem good. I am still looking about here but it seems this , the T5...

I thought you could get more from spectral analysis than a determination of the colour of the light ( which comes from the Kelvin value ) ,, specifically you could find out how much light is sent out in the frequencies at which plants like to photosynth at best ? Im referring to this article...

Has anybody tried these luminaires ? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/T5-AQUARIUM-OVERH ... 1|294%3A30 . They are sold as Marine with 10 K kelvin bulbs and they sent me the follwing chart for output. The legs are plastic and not metal but the spare legs are cheap so perhaps worth having. They also do a...

Take a look at Jing, its free. Or there is also Screencasts products which have a 30 day trial.

You know what thats a good point and it is not a question I can answer. That being said nobody ever won a case against the manufacturer of Aromatherapy products or the employer ( to my knowledge based on a quick google search ) because it was dangerous and nobody ever felt the need to perform...

Its being sold ( marketed ) either as a fertilizer or as a Herbicide depending on which product you look at so from the research i did , it falls under the legislation. I just confirmed what is common sense really as i notice most other dangerous things are labelled. Here is a link to...

AEtold me theres was when i bought it. Funny in tiny doses it kills plants and fish, at the same or lower air dose people get asthma and according to its msds other things are possible. Nurses won claims for other things too... and your mate drinks it and lives to tell the tale anyhow.. You...

Uk and European law states that if a chemical is a known toxin / hazard then its provider must make available an MSDS outlining the contents you can get the details of anything e.g washing up liquid , washing powder etc. This is so if there is a medical emergency with the product e.g kid drinks...

Tom, I am not using any product ( any more but tried two of them ) but as i said above I would tend to trust a major firm making this stuff to a precise solution more than an "online aquarium shop " and that is a sentiment many people expressed to me in private in addition. I would imagine...

Gorgeous looking fish.

David, Whilst i reference cost as a factor in my decision not to look deeper into the issue , I would by no means like that my reference to cost as inference that it was a factor in your own decision.

http://msds.chem.ox.ac.uk/FO/formaldehyde.html Kinda went eek when i read the toxicology on it. Lachrymator i think means something to do with chemical weapon or tear gas depending on the page you look at online.

Inhaled ( as i assume this was the manner of study since the near scuba kit they are mandated to wear doesnt allow skin absorbtion ) at .02 parts per million for 15 minutes or more according to people more qualified than us if i read the Royal College of nurses assessment correctly ? They...

Pretty much the same for them all.

The MSDS covers a lot of stuff , i get the impression they err on the side of caution whats of note though is that the medical procedures are different in the case of say ingestion of bleach to this with the emphasis being on trying to limit exposure by purposefully not inducing vomiting over...

http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf ... 001362.pdf http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/78505/001362.pdf There are some comments earlier in this thread relating to how its ok in lower concentrations and what concentrations are and are not problematic.

The smell about my home but for sure in the tank room is quite strong when i dosed it water change dose. This is what the medical profession thinks of the active ingredient. http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf%20...%20001362.pdf Nurses have won claims agains the NHS having developed problems...

Seachem are very keen to avoid saying it kills algae because then its a pesticide and subject to much more stringent federal health and safety laws in the US and Europe.

I did not overdose it but did the correct dose for waterchange and i lost a few fish. Its one of the reasons I have been on the AE case in particular and stopped using it. Also one of Mollys is really not doing well at all now had her for 2 years no probs. I was hesitant to say what happened...

I dont believe so. Did you notice the pong when dosing easycarbo ? have you seen the health care industries take on gluteraldehyde ?

I didnt suggest that you did :) But i suppose I assumed it a factor and as its so cheap do do it that its imvho not worth not doing it. Others have mentioned cost so i calculated my own cost of doing it. Aquatan which i use theoretically contains some slime coat products for the fish also but i...

Do you wheel the bins through your house then? Or have I got hold of the wrong end of the stick? No I wheel them through the house. About 130 Litres at the minute changed per week.

Know what you mean about the time , I am looking at ways of cutting down the time needed at the minute. Bought myself 2 wheelie bins ( 12 pounds ) and a little eheim pump. Pump the water out into the first bin and wash everything in it once its settled , keep that water for the flowers. Fill...

I been using Aquatan for about 3 years now . Upping the anti with EI recently based on a 5L bottle it will cost me 12 pence a week to treat the water. A year back i forgot to do it and promptly had a tank of of Algae ( so i assume i broke the nitrogen cycle ) .. even if it kills nothing in the...

Re: Eheim Pro 3 2075 Review Just to initially report that after 35 hours of working on my 180L I love my 2075 . I do not think i have ever had water this clear.. ever.

Lovely pics , the AN2 brings back fond memories of training students to parachute in Slovakia where in many locations this aircraft is still the workhorse , Most odd aircraft to fly in due to the pneutmatics system , sounds a bit like a steam engine.

So what you are saying is , that it must be in high concentration e.g in the shop bottle at which point it is very toxic and the bottle should be kept sealed and not smelled. As obvious as sniffing superglue is a bad idea , it says on the bottle sniffing glue is a bad idea on the bottle. The...

I havent looked at Anamos stuff so if you are trying to mimic a certain style and feel you achieved it congratulations. Perhaps I have missinterpreted the point of the photo ( if thats the experiment btw looking forward to the finished product :D ). Please dont take offense that i have...

I really like it and can clearly see your skill but the back is blown out to the point where its distracting and makes the eye wander around looking for something to grab onto.. Perhaps turn that rear flash down or bounce it off something , putting a warm coloured Gel on it might work also ?

This has to be one point of EI that doesnt sit with me. If at a given point of time there is an excess of everything ( which seems what one is aiming for with EI ) then how come its only the plants that grow. By my understanding we do a water change to ensure we dont reach toxic levels ( aswell...

Pages 6 and 7 of that report are the interesting ones, again the reduction in safe levels that the UK also adopted. AE stated their product is 20% stronger and it is not known that it is a polymer version that is being sold. I suppose long term the experience of other users will be interesting...

Re: What's in AE excel/ easycarbo That may be true but i dont go sticking my hands in bleach and besides which we are working with doses well in excess of what the health industry considers safe in dissolved form if AE or seachem for that matter is even 99% water. The medical profession is...

Re: Eheim Pro 3 2075 Review Well i just picked my one up from the LFS having told him the best price i could get online ( weazled a 30% discount on his shop price :D ). What i failed to " cop " but is clear in the review is the small spray bar which for a planted tank depending on how you are...

That would sound logical based on what I have found out thus far bearing in mind I am a layman doing research. These are of interest also : http://www.hse.gov.uk/asthma/glutaraldehyde.htm http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf ... 001362.pdf This is recognised in the UK as a highly toxic...

Thank for the clarification , I felt i had got the concept but was missinterpreting the terminology.

I have stopped using AEs carbon product totally and sent a sample of it to the Spanish State lab via my wifes sister who works there for a breakdown. The Excel product whilst even as above has dubious contents if the holes in the cheese lined up ( really do keep out of reach of children ! ) its...

Re: AE excel/easycarbo Generally speaking I dont understand why Seachem felt compelled to submit an MSDS with the toxic " non polymer " version but the fact is that they did and the symptoms on that MSDS match those of the non polymer version according the HSC ( UK) . In any event its been...

AE excel/easycarbo According to their Mandatory MSDS it is , beyond Seachem are not saying anything. Its probably not fair to AE to have that discussion here though.

I have read a number of reports that UV light breaks down excel and other aqua carbons ?

Hi James, Thank you for the reply. I have visited your website and seen you use Quartz sand as your substrata in addition.

This is a very interesting thread which i only found after posting this one http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=6844. It seems to refer to heavy root feeders which means in a sense its a loaded poll , of the hundreds if not thousands of plants available anybody care to hazard a guess as...

I was going to post this over on the Barr Report site but its not working. Im wondering if there is too much of a hoopla about substrata if you are correctly dosing EI? I read a Barr Report which seemed to suggest that Sand was as good as one of the most expensive brands on the market. I am...

Hi, Ok I had some doubts about this manner. I am starting to suspect ( but will test timing with a 5 litre bottle ) ) also that the flow of the filter is being decreased this way ( no matter since i am going to put in a more powerful second filter ). It should work out at the same amount of...

Re: Eheim Pro 3 2075 Review From what I have read here I believe it is the " Ecco " models only that are outsourced to China and have a reputation for leaks believed associated with poor build quality. I am about to order this filter too as for my tank I think it provides the best bang for the...

I am probably reading this wrong and think i have the idea but wanted to confirm that It . You say its due to low " uptake " ,, is this because the plants have not settled to their new home with its various foods on offer including CO2 ? I gather from what you go on to say when you reference...

Is that because the tubes are an odd size and hard to come by or made in a non standard size and impossible so as to tie you into their tubes for life ? I am looking at this unit and had narrowed it down to the Hagen Glo but this may change things given research seems to indicate that one can...

Well 10 days in now and all is going well. Some of the fast growing stem plants at the back took me by surprise so I had to prune them which to be honest meant i cut them back to about half their size. Wikipedia says Annubias produce about one leave every 3 months but i have now got a couple of...

Can I summarize from this thread that a correctly rated and maintained filter in addition to a good plant growth regimen means a UV is of little to no benefit to a planted tank with fish?

Hi, I have found a number of suppliers of CO2 fire extinguishers here in Spain but they all refer to an extinguisher that produces " co2 snow " for I believe fire type 89B. I am still looking for a welding one but a 5KG tank new is about 30 pounds so i think its good value at this. I have...

Thank you for this article. I have noted that the dominant placement of the DC is towards the water surface from peoples tank pics. Logically speaking i cant see anything wrong with putting it towards the bottom (since I am concentrated on growing grass ) and want to assess the CO2 levels down...

What lights are they please ?

Is the build quality to your knowledge poor with it not withstanding a mild knock or is there a noticeable and practical difference to the build quality. The Arcadia sounds nice and might have a more refined look , a bit like the Lily pipes effect but im keen to keep the cost down whilst not...

I started using ex tank water on plants about a week ago and talk about green shoots ! Lovely.

Mike, I really like your setup :D . How is it coming along now ?

Have a plan before you start, i say that only because my aquascaping is a bit more complicated given i just shoved bits in ( including plants and equipment ) as i went along. Now I am planning everything rather than just ordering bits randomly for my first " proper " or planned tank ( Im going...

Thanks loads.

Hi, My local chemicals shop has MgSO4·7H2O at 2 pounds per kilo , I just wanted to ask if there is any dosage difference to this beyond MGSO4 since on a weight basis there will be even less Magnesium ?