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Lighting Advice Needed

hogan53 said:
darren636 said:
if it is the tetra stuff, i stopped using it a while ago. Think mine was the slime coat one though. Unless there is a specific reason to dose extra water conditioner i would not do it.
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I still think its a precipitation..caused by adding something maybe Bicarbonates?
Why is the tank ph6 and the tap water 7.4?
hoggie
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I don't add bicarbonate of soda now. It was used when cycling the tank nearly 3 years ago. I think i'm dealing with bacteria rather than just ordinary mulm.
 
I wouldn't rely on any of those test kits mate.....as Clive says your just wasting your hard earned cash.
I ditched them 6 years ago you need to free up your mind and think what plants need in a natural enviorioment.
hoggie
 
hogan53 said:
I wouldn't rely on any of those test kits mate.....as Clive says your just wasting your hard earned cash.
I ditched them 6 years ago you need to free up your mind and think what plants need in a natural enviorioment.
hoggie
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I use a scientific instrument to test my nitrates. It's not any sort of liquid test. The plants are clearly doing quite well at the moment but are being hindered by an unknown substance. There is little new/active algae growth which is a positive sign.
 
hogan53 said:
Mark
Your eyes are your test kits.
Ditch the Scientific instruments/theory and look past them.
hoggie
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I don't test my aquarium water for ammonia/nitrite as I already inspect fish behaviour in order to work out if there is a problem. However, I use a nitrate meter for my own satisfaction that the nitrates are not too high. There is a theory that HITH disease in cichlids can be caused by a high nitrate level which has yet to be proved/disproved. The method of inspecting the fish for a disease, namely HITH, often means it is too late to save the fish from death when it comes to Mikrogeophagus Ramirezi. So I invested in a nitrate meter to allow me to ensure that nitrates are never over 50 ppm and never under 30 ppm.

I never at any point said that I don't consider what my plants need/want. Any actively growing algae in the aquarium is minimal; the large masses of algae on the glass is dead algae which is hard to remove. So I must stress again that algae is not causing any issues with plant growth, and as such, will not need to be "concentrating on what plants need to grow in a natural environment" since I've clearly already accomplished that.

The issue at hand here, Hogan, are the white particles growing on many surfaces which don't appear to be an algae but come across as a bacterium.
 
mark4785 said:
Hi all, i'll answer a few of the questions posted.

1. I use 3x the dosage of Aqua-safe because I like to see it working. The more you put in the more you are able to see the liquid expanding across the bucket. On the Aqua-safe bottle, it does say to mix the liquid in until you see a few bubbles and it has thoroughly distributed. This happens quicker when I overdose Aqua-safe. I've never seen Aqua-safe remove nitrates from my water column (as somebody mentioned earlier) as my digital nitrate meter indicates an upward nitrate concentration trend throughout the EI dosing regime.

2. The tank water reaches a PH of 6.0 because of the liquid co2 injection. The tap waters got a PH of 7.4 because its got a PH of 7.4 lol.

I will see if I can get some filter media around the koralias (as advised). But this white stuff is like dust. It will likely disperse all over the tank when I pull the filter media away. I'm 80% certain that if I keep sucking it up with the aquarium hoover on top of using a UV-C filter, that it will die.
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Hi Mark- what do you mean by "liquid CO2 injection"? is that pressurised CO2 or an off the shelf liquid supplement? If so, what's the make? Where in derbyshire are you based?
 
NatureBoy said:
Hi Mark- what do you mean by "liquid CO2 injection"? is that pressurised CO2 or an off the shelf liquid supplement? If so, what's the make? Where in derbyshire are you based?
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Sorry, I just mean't to say 'co2 injection'. I do use EasyCarbo liquid co2 in addition to co2 injection though.

I live near Chesterfield in Derbyshire so North-East Derbyshire.
 
NatureBoy said:
Hi Mark

To back up your water testing you can also enter your post code here http://www.stwater.co.uk/category/536?p ... itySubmit=

I wonder if the water company has been making any changes recently that affects your supply? This could explain why all of a sudden the water conditions have turned against you.

Things like this http://www.chesterfieldpost.co.uk/news/ ... 00295.html

It's a long shot but you never know!
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Hi Nature,

I supplied my post code and it gave me a link to the following report: http://www.stwater.co.uk/upload/pdf/ZDB ... r_West.pdf . As said earlier, other than the common parameters that fish-keepers test for, I have no idea whether or not most of the parameters in that report are within range. A brief report, which displayed after putting in my post code indicated quite hard water. In addition, my nitrate metre indicates 12-15 ppm of Nitrate in the tap water and the report indicates 12 ppm so sounds quite consistent.
 
hogan53 said:
Hi Mark
When was the last time you removed the filter and did a complete clean of the innards.
hoggie
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I've never done a complete clean of all the innards. Why do you ask? I dip the filter media in bucketed tank water every week and clean the impeller but I've never cleaned the inside walls of the filter box. I've quickly looked in the filter box and it looks like there is a lot of white particles in there. I'm not sure whether this is the source of it or merely being sucked in of off the surfaces which it is growing on.

In any case, in a moment i'm going to thoroughly clean the inside of the filter box out and I'm going to temporarily put a 9w UV filter in which has arrived today to kill any spores.

I guess if the filter has gotten dirty, the wrong type of bacteria has thrived and it's perhaps showing itself in the form of these particles? Given that I haven't cleaned the inner-walls of the filter for 2 years, does anybody happen to know of somebody who has gotten white particles, just like me, and has not cleaned the inner-walls of their filter just like me? If so, I think we probably know what's caused this issue.
 
There was a whitish (had a slight yellow tint) paste growing on the sucker behind the filter body, in and around the impeller and also growing in the outlet pipe. I've cleaned all of this. Done a 50% W/C and added the UV-C filter.

I will keep the co2 and lights off tomorrow and the day after, all the while doing a 80-90% W/C each of those days and keeping the UV-C filter running.

If that doesn't remove it...

Plan B: Turn UV off, put anti-fungal (the smell of the white paste had a fusty fungi smell to it) treatment into water while running the tank as normal

Plan C: Chuck plants away, relocate fish & sell entire tank. Buy a new tank that doesn't have a useless filter.
 
mark4785 said:
NatureBoy said:
Hi Mark

To back up your water testing you can also enter your post code here http://www.stwater.co.uk/category/536?p ... itySubmit=

I wonder if the water company has been making any changes recently that affects your supply? This could explain why all of a sudden the water conditions have turned against you.

Things like this http://www.chesterfieldpost.co.uk/news/ ... 00295.html

It's a long shot but you never know!
Click to expand...

Hi Nature,

I supplied my post code and it gave me a link to the following report: http://www.stwater.co.uk/upload/pdf/ZDB ... r_West.pdf . As said earlier, other than the common parameters that fish-keepers test for, I have no idea whether or not most of the parameters in that report are within range. A brief report, which displayed after putting in my post code indicated quite hard water. In addition, my nitrate metre indicates 12-15 ppm of Nitrate in the tap water and the report indicates 12 ppm so sounds quite consistent.
Click to expand...

I really like comparing to the water report, it made me stop using the toy test kits I had...measured no nitrates when mine were in fact 20!

What is of interest though are these figures relating to alkalinity / carbonate levels (from the main page rather than the pdf):
Hardness Level Slightly Hard No Standard Applies
Hardness Clark 9.00 No Standard Applies Degrees Clark
Hardness French 13.00 No Standard Applies French Degrees
Hardness German 7.00 No Standard Applies German Degrees

That tapwater figure of 7.00 kH, and pH of 7.6 ish (water report pdf) is sufficient, when you do a 50% water change, to shift the tank balance to alkaline, and proportionately more DIC represented by carbonate, so plants will switch to using the reservoir of fresh carbonate for photosynthesis until the pH drops and CO2 becomes more available.

During this time, through biogenic calcification, calcium carbonate is being precipitated out creating the undesirable effect you are seeing. Pretty sure of it.

cheers

Gary
 
NatureBoy said:
I really like comparing to the water report, it made me stop using the toy test kits I had...measured no nitrates when mine were in fact 20!

What is of interest though are these figures relating to alkalinity / carbonate levels (from the main page rather than the pdf):
Hardness Level Slightly Hard No Standard Applies
Hardness Clark 9.00 No Standard Applies Degrees Clark
Hardness French 13.00 No Standard Applies French Degrees
Hardness German 7.00 No Standard Applies German Degrees

That tapwater figure of 7.00 kH, and pH of 7.6 ish (water report pdf) is sufficient, when you do a 50% water change, to shift the tank balance to alkaline, and proportionately more DIC represented by carbonate, so plants will switch to using the reservoir of fresh carbonate for photosynthesis until the pH drops and CO2 becomes more available.

During this time, through biogenic calcification, calcium carbonate is being precipitated out creating the undesirable effect you are seeing. Pretty sure of it.

cheers

Gary
Click to expand...

The issue I have with your explanation is that when you say the plants are using "the reservoir of fresh carbonate for photosynthesis" and the PH is around 7.6, the main light source in the tank is off and remains off until I have dosed nitrate, phosphate, obtained sufficient co2 injection and dosed EasyCarbo. When the lights are off, the plants are using oxygen to thrive so I'm not sure where the carbonate would enter the equation at that point and result in what you call 'biogenic calcification'

Also, you have to consider the fact that the tank has been running for 3 years so why has it taken 3 years for the 'biogenic calcification' to come about?

Does this calcium carbonate smell like a fungi which is the stench coming from the filter?
 
sorry I meant biogenic decalcification. You increased the light intensity by removing the floating plants. Do you monitor the pH during the photoperiod rather than the start? You may add sufficient CO2 to lower the pH, but as soon as the plants hit their peak of activity how can you then have the sufficient CO2 without increasing the rate of CO2 to take account the plants usage? The responses to the thread "lighting advice needed" gave lots of free solutions that I would try before spending money / consider stripping down tank, unclear whether you have tried adjusting the light intensity back to what it was. Calcium carbonate smells like chalk.
 
hogan53 said:
Hi Mark
When was the last time you removed the filter and did a complete clean of the innards.
hoggie
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That's probably your problem.
As i said on a number occasions the filter wasn't up to the job....and you should clean a internal filters inner parts regularly...every few months.
Remove the old one and get a external with a heater :thumbup:
Cheers
hoggie
 
NatureBoy said:
sorry I meant biogenic decalcification. You increased the light intensity by removing the floating plants. Do you monitor the pH during the photoperiod rather than the start? You may add sufficient CO2 to lower the pH, but as soon as the plants hit their peak of activity how can you then have the sufficient CO2 without increasing the rate of CO2 to take account the plants usage? The responses to the thread "lighting advice needed" gave lots of free solutions that I would try before spending money / consider stripping down tank, unclear whether you have tried adjusting the light intensity back to what it was. Calcium carbonate smells like chalk.
Click to expand...

I don't test my PH at all during the photoperiod. I haven't had any reason to do so and have been encouraged by many UKAPS members to never test the water unless the fish behaviour alone implies a water quality problem.

I'm not sure what you mean by "as soon as the plants hit their peak activity how can you then have the sufficient CO2 without increasing the rate of C02 to take account the plants usage?". Many plants are spreading rapidly, growing new shoots, undergoing crypt-melt quickly (green leaves melting and being quickly replaced with red leaves). I only have a bit of algae growth on the back pane of glass and green spot algae near dead spots. I think its safe to say that I am taking into account the plants requirements but this whole process is being spoiled by what I think is a fungus.

The smell of the substance doesn't resemble a chalk smell.
 
hogan53 said:
That's probably your problem.
As i said on a number occasions the filter wasn't up to the job....and you should clean a internal filters filters inner parts regularly...every few months.
Remove the old one and get a external with a heater :thumbup:
Cheers
hoggie
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The filter is up to the job as far as not creating a fungus IF I clean it frequently enough; something I haven't done :cry: Thats the issue at hand here. Of course its not good enough for a planted aquarium but thats something I can't get around unless I sell the entire tank (filter parts are hardwired into the aquarium hood), something I don't need to do while I have minimal algae growth.

High algae growth can = inadequate flow which in turn = Insufficient LPH. I do have bits of algae growth but not enough to grumble about.

I need to get this fungus out the aquarium before I move on to removing the algae. It might be that the fungus is here to stay which effectively means algae can do whatever it wants given that I'd be selling the tank anyway.
 
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