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Hello all,
The tank is doing ok, most plants are growing despite the fact the tank is unheated. The cryptocoryne nurii is growing really slow, the eleocharis acicularis is hardly growing at all. I did not expect that.. any thoughts on making it grow better?
The moss I want to replace by a...
nice tank, the rocks on the left look great. on the right it looks like multiple rocks are lined up front to back? it lacks a bit of interest and that makes the tank look less balanced in my opinion.
I also think the scape would benefit from a midground plant around the rocks, making a more...
in the front ADA la plata sand. In the planted area filter bags filled with ADA Amazonia version 2 and ADA aquagravel on top. Under the main rock there is also a bag of pumice, raising it a little and keeping it stable.
The bags are there to keep the fish from digging into it, not that...
thank you both,
for those who care to know:
dimensions:
51cm x35 cm x 40 cm
DIY lamp with 6500K 2700K en 660nm red LED's, the last two are only on during sunrise/sunset. for 5 hours a day at the moment.
filtration is a hydor professional 250, and a hydor koralia 1600 for extra flow.
Fish...
Hello all,
After being without aquariums for some time after changing jobs and moving a couple of times, I found a place to stay for a couple of years and could not resist to set up my small tank again.
My main inspiration was a song, called "de steen" (the stone) part of the lyrics go like...
I think you gave the answer yourself. to be efficient in harvesting as much energy as possible from the light that hits them, plants(and algae) also need to absorb the light that is the hardest to adsorb. Because the intelligence of nature(evolution), they have found ways to do so. So like...
I did not say you need full spectrum. I only said it seems to be preferable compared to only blue and red. RGB is by no means full spectrum and still grows very nice plants. For me any ordinary white LED is full spectrum enough (although they usually have very little violets, deep blues, cyan...
yes you are right.
But there are some remarks to be made, (note I'm just a hobbyist so by no means an expert)
Firstly plant growth is often looked at as the result of photosynthesis and therefor there is a focus on the absorption spectra of chlorophyll a and b.
That does not take carotenoids in...
looks nice!
Hydrocotyle tripartita (sp japan) should work very well, there is a dwarf variant if you want even smaller leaves. Mosses would look nice to I think.
Carpeting aquarium plants would work to. Micranthemum tweediei (monte carlo) for instance. Or Bolbitis heteroclita "difformis"...
Hello all.
For a new tank I ordered a pot of giant hairgrass and I wondered if I should trim back te leaves before planting it? Like I would do for E. vivipara or E accicularis..
Well the proteins in plants and algae are not all exactly the same, Chlorophyll A is universal but the other types of chlorophyll are not. Phycobilisomes and the proteins they are made of are restricted to certain types of algae and cyanobacteria. Other chemicals like carotene and xanthophyll...
it is a nice concept! I feel the hardscape is a bit to much in the back and on one line from left to right. Moving some of it more to the front of the tank might improve dept and impact I think.
Many types of algae can use green light, Rhodophyta en Cyanobacteria have phycobilisomes to catch that part of the spectrum. That is why they don't appear to be green.
If you change your lightning algae usually appear, but with proper maintenance (cleaning the algae away) and care...
it is nearly impossible to get a decent picture, reflections are horrible. but it gives an idea.
The tank itself does have more plants then you can see, mostly because it is so dark you can't really see them, but I also did trim all the leaves of the Bolbitis and javaferns. hopefully new growth...
In most of my small projects I don't add co2.
if I do the effect is not different then in any other setup with a different filter method.
Water movement in an aquarium is strongest where it is actually moved. so near the pump. If you have a spraybar more water will go trough the first hole...
- roots often grow into the UGF making it hard to (re)move a plant.
+ it is a cheap, good looking and well working filter method. (no hoses, no leaking, no noise, no big black box inside your tank)
all other aspects are trivial imo. soil biology, distribution of nutrients and co2... it may...
for every inch you move away from the source, light gets spread over a larger surface so intensity drops. A smaller beam angle limits this effect, so spotlights are the way to go for tall tanks imo. Kessil makes very nice ones, of course they are not cheap.
30 mg/l NaHCO3 equals 1 DKH. So DKH 6 is 180 milligrams per liter of DC-solution.
I make my own DC-solution (KH 3.2) and to make measurements more easy I do it in 2 steps. First make 100 ml with 100 times stronger hardness, take 1 ml of that solution and add 99 ml water.
if you use...
I only use it to add minerals back to the DI-water I use for water changes. my fish prefer soft water, and I don't see much need for higher calcium figures. My problem with calcium sulfate was that it takes quite long to dissolve.
Once the filter is established the water remains crystal clear...
I use calcium acetate to reach 4.2 ppm calcium. the solubility is great but it does seriously promote bacterial growth so clouds the water in new tanks.
at the local gardencentre I found Blechnum gibbum "silver lady" ADA uses this in many of there emersed jungle type tanks so I was really happy to find it. But is was a pain to split it up in individual ferns, the good thing is I have 8 extra ones if the ones I tied to the wood wont make it...
Made a light, and stuffed the wall with some hardscape in a 45 cm tank.
the wet sand sticks all over so it is a bit messy. :crazy::crazy: beneath the sand is a DIY UGF, driven by a small pump hidden by the wood and rocks. it is only going to house a betta and plantwise only epifytes so no need...
yes it is spacer fabric. Hygrolon is a brand name more known in the orchid and dart frog community, but it is the same material ( at a higher price point)
like most things in the hobby some one found a clever use for an already existing product. it works great in wicking water to keep mosses...
time for an other project:
a passive wabi kusa wall.
passive because no pumps or mist makers, just beating gravity with a layer of hygrolon on filterfoam pads:
most orchids don't like it if the roots stay wet al the time. it often results in rotting roots, or fungi infections.
planting them with there roots on top of the moss will be better and also make sure you have some air circulation inside the glass cover will help to keep excess moisture from...
I removed the plant yesterday, it had its time.
it did develop floating leaves but did not stop producing new submerse leafs. I think the tank look much better without it.
Yes, I absolutely agree, the effect of liquid carbon is nowhere near similar as injecting 30 ppm CO2 . It is not a substitute.
But we should also realize that inject gaseous CO2 is not very efficient, most disappears into the atmosphere, some is dissolved in the water and a little is used by...
it is sold as Nymphaea stellata, which should be a synonym for Nymphaea nouchalli. It is a nice plant, but I feel the leaves grow to big for this scape, also the color is a became a bit distracting after I removed the other pinkish plants... I love the look of floating lily pads, but it is...
I was doing some reading on the metabolism of plants because I want to improve my fertilizer formula, and stumbled across an interesting part of cells called peroxisome. One of its functions is to help breakdown toxic substances and waste by producing hydrogen-peroxide (H2O2). I realized that...
It looks like electrolysis, (mostly because it is) there is a very simple test for it, but that might give people ideas that might be fun and therefor not necessarily safe...
Instead, look at al the thing, how it is made, how it works, how all the diy copy's work ..... and there is only one...
an update on the 70 liter,
I've been away for a week and the tank definitely needs a good clean and trim. I upgraded the lightning recently and that gives a bid of algae.
Besides that I'm not happy with the left side planting wise. the lilly has to go. but i'm not sure what should replace...
The old Dario Ditch is no more, since January the tank has been replaced by a 51 x 35 x 40 cm tank custom made by Green-Aqua. I never made the time to start a thread about it...:sorry:
last weekend I used the old tank to make a new one. it is 50 x 31 x 12 cm, not perfect, but it holds...
Hello all,
Today I received a portion Crepidomanes sp Vietnam 3. I tried the search function but not much came up regarding long term care of Crepidomanes species. So if you have some experience or tips about these ferns, I would highly appreciate it!
is your TDS-pen temperature corrected?
EC/TDS will increase around 2 % per degree celsius (more at high temperatures) so heating up a bucket of water will indeed increase TDS if your TDS-pen does not correct for it.
before trimming:
after trimming:
I feel it looks better with some more hardscape showing. I'm not sure what to do with the foreground, bit tempted to redo it, what do you think?
why not ad the nutrients in a 1:1 ratio with the fresh water?
so if you change 14 liters of water, you add nutrients to bring those 14 liters up to standard EI-levels. (or double in extreme high tech)
0 change of overdosing or nutrient build up.
In water with low CO2 the pH will also show large fluctuations. if you half the CO2 the pH will rise (roughly) 0.3 A difference of a few ppm CO2 can make a serious pH difference at low/natural CO2-levels.
That question has a nearly endless row of correct but incomplete answers. compare it to the question "what are books about?"
Organic waste can be, and will be, many things. The only thing they all have in common is that they are carbon based. Other characteristics differ, some might be...
1 Nitrification is an acidifying process, the conversion of ammonia to nitrate leafs excess H+. overtime pH en alkalinity (KH) will drop. Water changes are there to restore those values.
2 we can only measure so much, we have a handful of mostly indicative tests. Water quality is also about all...
I don't like tap water in general for aquariums, but there are alternatives. RO units and DI filters are easily available and quite affordable, so we are not restricted to tap water or rain water anymore
I think there is much to learn, from nature, from old literature and new research. I also think there is a lot of ignorance wen it comes to water chemistry and the feeding of our fish. Water chemistry should be good for the specific species of fish that are kept in there, but most are satisfied...
there is no magic anti algae machine, simply because algae can have many causes and there is not one solution for all of them.
but higher oxygen levels, ultra clear water and maybe even a little disinfection all make sense, so not that bad.
I think there could much truth in that. Most fish caught in Asia end up on the Asian market, the demand there is mostly for colorful fish, male-female ratio usually is not much of an issue. And wen trading your catch on the local marketplace it might very well be an advantage to have the most...
lovely as always,
sexing immature Dario is a pain, I would not be surprised if all three are males. Which is probably fine, mine ( a different species but still) don't need that much personal space and are sharing a smaller tank without harming each other. One female might be a bigger issue...
added some Malawa-shrimp:
snapshot:
any thoughts on a background plant behind the rotala?
I'm thinking of adding some glosso to the foreground, maybe a small crypt in de midground.
the snail population explodes because there is more then enough to eat. A few survivors or eggs can be the start of a new population. So as long there are enough leftovers for snails, they will return sooner or later. That does not mean that gastropex does not work, assuming it is dosed...
The new one is a female, the original one might be a male. There is a red coloration on the belly but it's not the deeper pinkish blush you would expect.
The fish will know and tell you with their behavior. If their is courtship behavior it is most likely a pair.
. I do not dispute that they are social creatures, but 10 seems to be equally random as 8 for shoaling fish, or 12 for schooling fish. In my opinion the right size of a group depends greatly on the tank size (and the species of course). The density is more relevant then the total number. For...
usually I add (the first) fish somewhere between 2 days and 2 weeks. With my first few tanks I was measuring for nitrite every day, always without result so I stopped worrying about it, seems to me that in a planted tank without a huge source of ammonia those spikes just don't happen.
@Kezzab & @Marc Jackson thnx, I'll go for option 2.
@Siege Underneath the sand there is a layer of peat, bentonite and cycled glafoam for the plants to grow in. I personally don't fancy the look of AquaSoil, although behind the rocks it might become completely overgrown...
@TBRO I pressed...
this pic was taken on 1 april 2013, I bought the rhizomes of ebay in oktober 2012. It was seriously neglected in a low tech tank I used to raise fry of Parosphromenus..
Otos should be kept in groups, and or not that easy to keep alive. They are quite sensitive for changes, so not the best choice for a freshly setup tank.
Amano shrimp are the best cleaners, better then cherry shrimp so you would need to ad much more of those to get the same effect. I would go...
I ques most of us wish that ;-)
Otocinclus will eat some algae, but only on surfaces like glass and stone. Those are easy to clean, the algae on/between plants are much more annoying but won't be eaten by the fish. In a small tank I don't really see the benefits of Otos.
the plants are quite easy, and not very demanding in terms of light and care. The difficulty is that they seem to be somewhat seasonal and go dormant after some time.
I want to "enhance" the substrate in my tank a bid, and since I ordered some new plant species I figured that would be a good opportunity to change the substrate.
I've looked at the substrates at my LFS but those seem to be >90% sand mixed with a little peat, and in 1 case pumice. Since I only...
my Dario's don't eat frozen food, (I'm also not really trying to get them to eat it) But they are small fish. You don't need loads of live food for them, and it does not have to be very small either. Just regular white worm, blood worm, glass worm, tubifex, dafnia etc is fine.
Very nice wood. you don't leave much space for background planting, if you look at the tanks you posted as examples, you see that the hardscape is placed much closer to the front of the tank. Somewhere around the middle.
hygrophyla "araguaia" would give a nice contrast in leaf shape with the hydrotocyle, great idea.
Amania sp bonsai, or at least the plant sold under that name, might be nice. Didiplis diandra can be very pretty as midground plant.
Ludwigia sp white. might be something very different but would...
Its an easy plant in my experience, in terms of care and growth very comparable to many of the smaller crypts. I had it back in 2016, still very rare back then but some large nurseries added it to their collection so should become more widely available...
The most obvious solution is to change the soil.
Or switch to Caridina shrimp, they prefer soft water...
Or put a small piece of limestone in your filter or tank... continuously adding minerals won't give fluctuations like water changes might.
Congratz,
Nice little fish, crushing or chopping food in smaller pieces gives them more change since there are more pieces of food, and makes it easier for them to eat.
off course you should not let kids play with them, let alone stick them in their mouths,
But as said by ian_m it is a combination of citric acid and a bicarbonate, and so is baking powder. Their will probably be also some filler in their to make the tablets dissolve slower.
Their is no loss...
Green hairy algae is often associated with not enough CO2<-> to much light. If you can add more CO2 then do so, and if not: lower the light.
Remove as much of the algae as you can, or hire some amano shrimp (caridina multidentata) to do it for you.
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