Above 8

[hax47]

I think it's unlikely. I don't think ammonia is the algae trigger, in the first place.
One of many arguments: Due to dissociation curve of ammonium/ammonia, algae would grow much more prominently in basic environment, and below pH = 6.5 would be near impossible. Obviously, this is not what we observe in our tanks.

I know that ammonia is not considered a trigger of algae by everyone, and it is even used as fertilizer in some soils if I am not wrong. I like the model in which the algae are considered predators, and the local microenvironment on damaged plants triggers them. I don't know if ammonia is a part of that environment, but I imagine some good nitrogen source in the form of high local ammonia can not hurt the algae. I also like to think there is a difference between algae types.

Spoiler: ammonia

I think it is possible theoretically to have effective passive diffusion of NH3/NH4 through membranes even if the relative NH3 amount is very low (like less than 1/1000th of NH4+ concentration), since NH3 will be converted back to NH4+ inside the cells, thus securing the low concentration for diffusion. What would limit the transport is the increase of the pH inside the cells, and whether there is a coupled transport mechanism that takes care of that (like parallel Cl/HCO3 exchange). I know little about algae physiology, so I can only speculate. However, algae may have specialized NH4+ transporters, making the uptake less dependent on the pH.

 

[_Maq_]

it is even used as fertilizer in some soils

It is, indeed. The modern way of fertilizing nitrogen is injecting pure ammonia below the soil surface to avoid evaporation, together with nitrification inhibitors. Ammonium, unlike nitrate, adsorbs to soil compounds and stays in place. Losses are decreased and nitrogen pollution is lowered as well.
I'm using ammonium for fertilizing my plants routinely. My default nitrogen source is ammonium nitrate, so I provide plants with both forms.

the local microenvironment on damaged plants triggers them.

I like the thesis that most algae are, in fact, mixotrophic. So they like the spots where plants are "bleeding". But what attracts them is not precisely ammonia but various nutrients-containing compounds, either organic or mineral.

 

[hax47]

Planning for a Dutch style tank you say? Recently I have been just thinking if I could start over my dutch tank, I would go for various types of Ludwigias aha (instead of the Rotalas I chose). More reliable presentation of colours and less finnicky.

I was not a huge fan of this style before, but after keeping plants for some time, now I can appreciate a Dutch tank with a bunch of nice, healthy plants. I still prefer the nature style, but I feel I would learn from keeping a lot of different plants. I also want to run in without filter, with just a powerhead (inspired by @_Maq_ ). I actually plan to try a few different rotalas, some of the stems I put in got some pinkish color, and now I am excited. But I still hope, that I'll be able to keep Ludwigias alive as well.

Here's what mine looks like. Bolbitus heteroclita ‘Difformis’ circled in cyan in the photo.

Thanks for the photo, this is what I expected. I would like to have contrasts between the green plants, and the ones I can keep tend to be on the light-green side, exept for the moss.

 

[hax47]

Vitamin C and Cryptobia iubilans

I have been slowly losing my Cyprochromis fish for a while now. The symptoms can be described as "wasting disease"; the affected fish develop sunken bellies, stop eating after a while, and eventually die. This issue has only affected the Cyprochromis fish and has occurred in four different tanks/setups so far, affecting both the adult fish and the fry. Typically, it happens with one or two fish at a time, and I lose one every ten days or so. I've attempted to treat them a few times, targeting both parasites and bacterial infections, but it has not had any effect.
This week, I lost two of them, a young and an older one, so I sought vet help. I found someone who performed an autopsy on the dead fish. It turns out that he has an academic background in fish pathology and fish parasitology, so it was very interesting to talk to him about keeping fish and fish health. He also used to keep and breed Tanganyika cichlids, so I learned a lot from him.
It turns out that both had vitamin C deficiency (scurvy), and the adult also had a Cryptobia iubilans infection.
Vitamin C is required for healthy blood vessel development, specifically for collagen production in the walls of the vessels. In deficiency, the fish can essentially bleed out due to skin/scale hemorrhages. This was quite a surprise for me, as I had assumed that providing good food should contain all the necessary vitamins they need. I feed good pelleted and granulated foods, as well as frozen cyclops and artemia. I even feed my homemade salmon+spinach food sometimes, and I also accused this food as a potential source of some salmon parasites. I checked my dry food labels, and one lists L-ascorbic acid, while the other does not. It turns out that even if the food contains the vitamin (not just on the label), it may degrade over time. He advised me always to store the food in the freezer, even the dry food. I guess I should also purchase them in advance for only one or two months.
So, the therapy advice I received is to dissolve L-ascorbic acid in ethanol, spray the spread-out food with it, let it dry, and then feed it to the fish. Apparently, the same can be done with medicines, too.
As for Cryptobia iubilans, it's a more complicated issue. It's a flagellate organism that infects the stomach, causing granulomas that eventually block the lumen, leading to starvation and the observed symptoms of sunken bellies and slow, agonizing death. The disease may develop slowly, making it not immediately obvious when someone buys the fish. It seems to be a relatively common parasite in cichlids, and unfortunately, there is no known treatment for it except for aggressive culling of affected species and improving the fish's environment. Many fish can survive the infection, and in my tanks, it was likely the vitamin C deficiency that weakened the fish enough for the parasites to kill them.

So, let's hope that the vitamin C dosing does its thing, fingers crossed.

 

[LMuhlen]

Could it be the other way around? The infection led to a vitamin C deficiency?

 

[hax47]

I doubt it, the infection leads to lumen closure which prevents any nutrient from absorption, and shouldn't be specific to ascorbic acid. The malnutrition symptoms he described seemed to be very specific to scurvy. Also, the fry did not have the infection.

 

[hax47]

I have been running the new lighting setup for a few weeks, with a higher intensity (70%) in the morning and a lower intensity in the evening (50%). It seems that the thread algae like this setup more. I previously had to remove a few threads during the weekend maintenance from between the mosses when I ran 60% all the time, but with this new setup, I also had to remove a lot in the middle of the week. I believe the 70% was the problem in the morning, not the 50% in the evening. Now I have changed to a 65%/55% morning/evening schedule and will see what happens. Even with the 65% in the morning, I get some pearling:

Speaking of the thread algae, I used to think that it was a pain to pull them out of the moss. Now I think that pulling out H. tripartita is much worse:

View attachment tripatita.jpg

I will never plant H. tripartita and moss next to each other again.

I have not shown this yet; here is my entire rack with the smaller aquariums; I scaped the shelf around the tanks recently:

View attachment rack.jpg

The bottom right aquarium is my to-be Dutch tank. I started the dark cycle about three weeks ago. I will let it run for a few more weeks so I still have time to plan the planting, make the lighting, etc. Interestingly, with the first aquarium, I had this urge to have it running with plants and fish and all as soon as possible, but now I am happy to take the steps slower. There will be no filter, just a powerhead with a shrimp net on the inlet. It has pond soil + filter sand as a substrate. I plan to rescape the other two as well at some point. Those two used to be homes of young Altolamprologus fishes, which have now moved to my 900l tank.

The Cyprichromis fish seem better now since the C-vitamin supplementation, although I have lost a young one. Probably, the vitamin does not solve the problem promptly. Anyway, I moved the young to the upper aquarium, where I raised the NaCl concentration. The water changes will be smaller, and I will not add CO2. Hopefully, a more stable environment will help them.

Regarding the 900l tank, I feel that the plants are now settled in; I guess I just need to wait until the bottom is fully covered:

 

[hax47]

I planted the planned-to-be Dutch-style tank last week. It has been running in the dark since the beginning of October, so it was time to introduce some plants. I will be adding 60 ppm of CO2 every morning for a while until the plants establish themselves. Afterward, before introducing any animals, I plan to decrease the CO2 morning dose to about 20-30 ppm. With the 60, the levels drop to about 10 by the evening.
I aimed to create contrasts using various leaf shapes, colors, and different shades of green. I guess that would have been easier with more experience. I am curious how this will turn out.
I do not have a filter, just a powerhead with a shrimp net.

 

[Andy Pierce]

Speaking of the thread algae, I used to think that it was a pain to pull them out of the moss. Now I think that pulling out H. tripartita is much worse:
View attachment 212092
I will never plant H. tripartita and moss next to each other again.

Actually, I quite like the look of the moss and the H tripartita growing into each other like that. I think you have a big enough setup that you can make that work.

 

[hax47]

Actually, I quite like the look of the moss and the H tripartita growing into each other like that. I think you have a big enough setup that you can make that work.

I guess I got into a Dutch mood lately and wanted to see a clear separation, but you might be right, now that you pointed it out, I kinda start to like it too. I do worry that the tripatita might completely take over though, due to its faster growth. Perhaps with careful control, it could still work.

 

[hax47]

Update, 160 liter tank:
Things are going well, there is no huge change, maybe except that I got impatient, and instead of waiting a few months for my Eleocharis pusilla to cover the entire ground, I impulse-purchased a few jars of it and planted them for a short-cut.

The vivipara is coming back from death, I wonder how far it will reach:

The monte carlo is doing well, and I am trying to grow some rotala in the back. I want to hide the cable of one of the pumps with it eventually. Also, once I am satisfied with the overall plant mass, I might try to cut back on the nitrogen to lean dosing levels and get some transition in colors between the greens and the red Altherenthea..

I moved some Bacopa monnieri from another tank to hide the other pump. So far I had rotalas here, but they did not get enough of something, I guess the light was missing in the corner.

I cut back the tripartita before it would take over the entire tank, but now I am letting the edges blend in with the neighbors, to give a more natural and less Dutchy feel. Still needs some blending:

I am quite happy with the frogbit now, nice, fat, and green. I am not 100% sure what exactly was the key, I stopped using Fe-EDDHA; I have been dosing only DTPA iron in the last few weeks. However, I do it together with the morning's soda water dose, so I guess the pH is in the right range, at least for a few hours. Also, I lowered the nitrate dose, now I add 8 ppm twice a week instead of the previous 20-25 ppm twice. I guess cutting the growth rate back a little bit also lowers the iron demand, which might be crucial in alkaline water. Not sure if the 8 ppm slows the growth significantly though.

 

[hax47]

Update, Dutchy-like:
The plants started to grow, getting new shoots, I had to do some topping with the Proserpinaca palustris on the left and with the polysperma Rosanervig on the right. Also moved the tripartita cuts from the other tank here. I started to get brown algae, so I decided to put some shrimps and snails; they cleaned up everything in a few days. The water is a little bit cloudy, there are also some tiny creatures in it. I suppose this is the consequence of not having a mechanical (or any) filter. I don't think the plants care, so I don't care either. Maybe it will clear down with time, or there will be some food for the fish once I get them.

I hope the rotalas will start to grow faster at some point:

And some happy frogbits from this tank as well:

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I am quite happy with the frogbit now, nice, fat, and green.

They look good.

I stopped using Fe-EDDHA; I have been dosing only DTPA iron in the last few weeks. However, I do it together with the morning's soda water dose, so I guess the pH is in the right range, at least for a few hours

Interesting.

cheers Darrel

 

[hax47]

And the last one:
This one is a new setup, starting the dark cycling. I plan to have Utricularia graminifolia monoculture in it. If it fails, then MC or HM, in that order. It has an undergravel filter, with basalt, lava rock on top, covered with some filter sand. There is also geotextile under the sand. A single powerhead drives the filter.
I don't like the large rock in front too much, but since I glued it in, it will remain. I was planning to add some smaller rocks too, but they probably won't be visible after the plants grow in. The light for the photo has blue LEDs in it, therefore the blue tint.

 

[hax47]

The other day I tried to describe my CO2 dosing system to someone, and I wondered what the correct description would be for CO2 dosing with club soda. Club-soda CO2 system maybe? I like the single-shot CO2 system term more, but as not a native English speaker, I am sometimes confused about whether the terms I use mean what I intend them to mean.
I searched google with the /"single-shot" CO2 aquarium/ term, but most of the top hits are gun-related, with one aquarium-related (relevant) hit from 2009. So I went further and asked Chat-GPT, what it thinks the single-shot CO2 system could be. I think it described it well but it may have been just playing a guessing game (hallucinating):

Spoiler: Single-shot CO2 system

Me: Hi, how would you describe, what would be an aquarium like, with a so-called single-shot CO2 system?

ChatGPT:

A single-shot CO2 system in an aquarium typically refers to a method of injecting carbon dioxide (CO2) into the water to support healthy plant growth. Unlike continuous injection systems that regulate CO2 levels consistently, a single-shot system involves manually introducing a set amount of CO2 into the aquarium at one time, often using a disposable cartridge or a pre-measured dose.

Here's a breakdown of what a single-shot CO2 system might entail:

Components: It usually consists of a CO2 cartridge or container with a predetermined amount of CO2 and a release mechanism to introduce it into the water.

Usage: This system is often used in smaller aquariums or by hobbyists who prefer a simpler method of CO2 supplementation. It's a one-time addition rather than a continuous process.

Control: With a single-shot system, there's less control over the amount of CO2 released compared to more sophisticated setups. The concentration of CO2 in the water might fluctuate until it's absorbed or dissipated.

Effects: Properly dosed, CO2 can enhance plant growth by aiding photosynthesis. However, excessive or uneven dosing might lead to fluctuations in water pH or stress on aquatic life.

Maintenance: Since it's not an automated or regulated system, users need to manually monitor the effects of the CO2 injection on their aquarium's inhabitants and adjust the dosage as needed.

Remember, maintaining a balanced aquarium environment is crucial. CO2 supplementation, whether through a single-shot system or other methods, should be done cautiously and in line with the specific needs of the aquatic plants and inhabitants in your tank.


Me: Did you hallucinate this, or is it a real thing that people use?

ChatGPT:

Apologies for any confusion earlier! The term "single-shot CO2 system" isn't commonly used in the context of aquarium keeping. There are CO2 systems used in aquariums, but they typically operate on a more continuous or controlled basis rather than a one-time "single-shot" method.

CO2 injection in aquariums is indeed a real practice used to support plant growth. There are various systems available, such as:

Pressurized CO2 Systems: These involve a regulated CO2 tank connected to a diffuser in the aquarium. The release of CO2 is controlled by a regulator and timer to maintain consistent levels.

DIY Yeast-Based Systems: Some hobbyists create their own CO2 systems by using yeast to generate CO2 in a reaction with sugar. However, these systems might not offer precise control over CO2 levels.

Liquid Carbon Supplements: Some aquarium owners use liquid carbon supplements as an alternative to injecting gaseous CO2. These products contain compounds that release carbon into the water, aiding plant growth.

While the term "single-shot CO2 system" might not be a recognized or widely used term in the aquarium hobby, there are various methods for CO2 supplementation, each with its own level of control, precision, and effectiveness in supporting aquatic plant growth.

As a reference point, I also tried the Duckweed index. I guess it needs some improvements (or data updates) to recognize the real things. It also says that I could use the English term "it hit the crossbar" to describe the below answer (direct translation from Hungarian, meaning that someone missed a target with her/his actions a little bit). Well, I am not sure, never heard the term "hit the crossbar" used with this meaning.

Spoiler: Duckweed index

Me:
What does the term duckweed index refer to in the aquarium hobby, and why is it useful?

ChatGPT:
The term "duckweed index" isn't a widely recognized or established term in the aquarium hobby as of my last update. However, it might refer to a measure or observation related to the presence or proliferation of duckweed—a common floating plant in aquariums.
Duckweed is a small, floating plant that can rapidly reproduce and cover the water surface. Its presence can impact the aquarium ecosystem in various ways:

1. Nutrient Uptake: Duckweed can absorb nutrients from the water, potentially helping to reduce nitrates and phosphates, which are otherwise detrimental in high concentrations.
2. Shading and Light Competition: An excess of duckweed can block light from reaching the submerged plants at the bottom of the tank, affecting their growth.
3. Oxygen Exchange: While duckweed can contribute to oxygenation during photosynthesis, an excessive layer might hinder gas exchange between the water and the atmosphere.

The "duckweed index," if used informally by hobbyists, could indicate the abundance or coverage of duckweed in an aquarium. It might serve as a gauge for the balance of the ecosystem, indicating whether duckweed is proliferating too rapidly or if it's effectively managing nutrient levels.
Managing the duckweed index could involve manual removal of excess duckweed to prevent it from completely covering the water surface or adjusting nutrient levels and lighting to control its growth.
While not a standard term, observing the prevalence of duckweed can be useful in maintaining a balanced and healthy aquarium ecosystem, ensuring that it doesn't dominate or disrupt the overall aquatic environment.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

As a reference point, I also tried the Duckweed index. I guess it needs some improvements (or data updates) to recognize the real things.

It isn't a bad attempt by chat-GPT

1. Nutrient Uptake: Duckweed can absorb nutrients from the water, potentially helping to reduce nitrates and phosphates, which are otherwise detrimental in high concentrations.

I'd say it has found the <"coffee among the froth">.

cheers Darrel

 

[hax47]

Update on the Dutchy, low-budget, single-shot CO2 tank. Actually, most of my tanks are single-shot CO2 now, it is just the size of the shot that differs. This one gets the biggest shot.
The plants are doing fine, and growing. The rotalas are lagging a bit behind, but they started to grow already. I'd like them to cover the back of the tank. Also, I added some Pogostemon erectus, but the p. p. cube hides it for now.

The Ludwigia glandulosa started to develop curly leaves after I increased the light intensity from 65% to 80%. I suspect something was missing, either CO2, iron, magnesium, or something else. I took a CO2 profile; the CO2 went down to 4 ppm by the evening:

After cutting the afternoon light intensity back, and removing lots of floating plants, it only went to 6 ppm the next evening. I also increased the micro dosing and started adding magnesium. Now it seems that the new leaves look a little bit better. I suspect that if the plants grow even bigger I might will have problems maintaining the elevated CO2 levels with the single-shot. We will see.

 

[hax47]

The second time I get amano babies in the Dutch tank. This time I moved them to salt water, maybe I get lucky and a few of them survive.

 

[hax47]

The babies did not survive 24 hours in the salt water. I used iodine-free sea salt, 30g/liter as suggested by some online sources, but something must have gone wrong. The Russian description on the packaging even stated that the salt is GMO-free

I ordered now some seawater and will try to grow some algae in it to be ready by the next hatch. I don't know how hard it could be to grow algae.

My Dutch tank is doing well, the Rotalas start to be visible in the background. I have rearranged some of the plants a few times. I am apparently not good at foreseeing how tall and how quickly a plant will grow, information that seems to be crucial in Dutch tanks.
The Pogostemon erectus has died on me. I replaced it with Nesea gold. It is so tiny yet... I did put a single stem before the Ludwigia too so I could keep an eye on it to see if it grows or not. If it survives, it could give a nice contrast in the left-back corner. I also placed some Hygrophila corymbosa 'Compact' between the Lobelia cardinalis mini and the Ludwigia glandulosa. The Ludwigia grows tall so quickly and I would like to have some transition in size in front of it behind the Lobelia. The Lobelia grows like a weed btw.
The one thing that does not look good is the cloudy water. This is not a surprise, since there is no filter in this tank. I am not sure though if I keep precipitating things from the water, or it is full of living creatures. The contrast between this tank and the ones with UG filter is huge. I could live with it, I keep telling my wife that this is "natural" , but she insists that I need some filtration in the tank.

 

[bazz]

I don't know how hard it could be to grow algae.

Not very!