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Dip the plants in dilute potassium permanganate solution, works well. Also dilute bleach. Also dilute solution of Seachem Excel (gluteraldehyde polymer mix) works as well. Bit of research required to work out correct concentrations will be required.

I got a tour round the water purification plant for a zoo's penguin pond once. They claimed they used no chemicals in notice board outside the filtration plant until I pointed out that bags of calcium chloride and flasks of hydrogen peroxide are in fact chemicals. Calcium chloride was mixed...

Doesn't happen in UK with UK domestic water. It is an issue with water from wells where pH may be acidic. Higher pH > 6 deposits an insoluble film on the copper. Domestic water supplies are treated to keep a suitable pH,. Any way just treat the water with Prime and you are good to go.

Please think this myth through.... If copper from the pipes dissolved into the water, would not we all be sitting in puddles of water where all the pipes have dissolved away ???. How come my mates house, re-plumbed in the 1950/60's (yes with 1/2 inch copper pipes, all new plumbing is generally...

Are you warming the replacement water ? Are you using a good brand of dechlorinator ?

This is why I use a yellow bucket to siphon into before pumping the water out onto front lawn...

Syphon your water into say a yellow 40 Litre bucket, which enables one to see any "accidentals" a lot easier. When all is clear I pump the water out onto my front lawn.

Any one know where I can get a shrimp safe inlet that fits over 22mm pipe, as used in JBL e1501 filter ? Most of the ones on Ebay etc are all for 16mm inlet pipes.:(

I got a snail infection a year or two ago from plants not bought from my usual shop. To be honest didn't really mind them (miss them now gone) watching them race across the glass, attacking odd algae patches, clogging filters, making holes in plants... However each water change I removed as...

I accidentally got snails in plants from a shop that wasn't my normal fish shop. Whilst snails are not an issue per se, they will multiply so much, that when I came back from holiday once, I ended up removing about 100 snails of various sizes from plants, hardscape, sand and inside the filters...

I doubt it. If any copper were dissolving in the water, we would all soon be knee deep in water as our copper pipes dissolved away !!!. The green stains we see often under old taps is from the taps rather than the pipes. New taps for the last 30-40 years (except cheapies from China !!!) are...

Cycling is not just cycling the filter. It is about getting bacteria to grow in the water column, in the substrate, on the glass, on your filter pipes etc. Best method is to get old filter pads (I once posted my old one to a mate) or filter "gunk" and place in new filter. Will still take 4-8...

Due to a pump failure I ran for a couple of days with 400ppm NO3 in my tank. Only noticed when I heard the pump whirring couple of days later. Fish fine, plants fine, no algae just really annoying as emptied 1litre of EI solution and didn't end up with monster plant growth...

Generally very high, around 1600ppm is reported to be fatal NO3 levels.

Plenty of choice here.. http://www.ampulla.co.uk/UN-CERTIFIED---STACKABLE-CONTAINERS-1L---30L/c-1-112/

Which is why in UK we must use dechlorinator. Most water companies use chlorine in the water, easily removed by all dechlorinators as well as self degassing in 24hours, but some are now using chloramine and also put chloramine in the water in emergencies ie pipe burst. In my last house we had a...

Most are still lead. Zinc alloys are not that flexible and would corrode away in water. Search Ebay for "plant weights", all are lead strip of one form or another.

The lead strips are relatively harmless as a insoluble (lead oxide & lead phosphate) coating will quickly form. Maybe an issue if used in just super soft water as coating doesn't form, which is why water companies dose phosphate into water in soft water areas with lead piping. But harmless, else...

Yet another error. Fish caring about dH. My Otto's live in very hard water (2nd hardest in UK) and they are fine and yes they did scoff all the diatoms I got after I initially set up my planted tank. No they don't really touch BBA, but will eat dead BBA that has been treated with Excel.

Well that's a complete load of matrix....plants need light to photosynthesise, turn light off, photosynthesis stops..easy as that. Most people turn their CO2 an hour before lights off, no point continuing with CO2 when no light is present.

Malachite is copper carbonate based. Mind change your mind.

Fantastic, much better than DIY mesh. If ever I turn shrimp this looks the biz :D

My local fish shop has cylinders of mesh around the filter intake pipes, made from rectangles of "gardening mesh" sown together in cylinders. Whilst not the most beautiful item, does appear to allow the shrimps to move around the intake cleaning up debris sucked up by the filter.