Little 20l AIO

[Little]

Small update.
Shrimp molt spotted

Needle leaf getting its melt / stress of newly planting in a new aquarium

Nurii still refusing to melt its emerged leaves but it’s put out a couple of submerged ones.

The little lava rocks with the moss from eBay has some while mould and is becoming suspiciously blue green. I took them out and sat them in them in some diluted 2h aquarist fix light for 30 seconds then replaced them. Will see how it goes.

Was tempted to re try to better plant the pava and hobbit but decided to resist and just leave the tank alone for a bit as feels like messing about could do more harm than good.

Couple full tank shots for prosperity.

 

[Little]

The Buce Needle Leaf is melting very hard now. Pretty much disintegrated.
Nothing else is struggling in the tank so I’m hoping it will recover. If not will replace with Anubis Mini Coin.
Anyone have thoughts on how severe the melt is and how likely it is to survive?
Frogbit looks maybe a tiny bit pale so I added a little chelated iron today (the solufeed that’s recommended here for hard water). I followed the fireplace aquarium dose.

 

[Little]

Ok… Buce Needle Leaf is fully melted. Zero leaves left. It’s throwing roots all over the place. Some small signs of new growth trying and no noticeable algae. Anyone able to give a guess as to its survival chances?
I picked up some ADA green gain (says its seaweed / boron) in an attempt to support its growth.

 

[bazz]

Ok… Buce Needle Leaf is fully melted. Zero leaves left. It’s throwing roots all over the place. Some small signs of new growth trying and no noticeable algae. Anyone able to give a guess as to its survival chances?

I'd be tempted to give it longer, as you say there is root and shoot growth. Only when the Rhizome turns to mush would I fully give up. Bear in mind, Buce are a lot slower growing than most other plants.
Tell me, how is your Hobbit doing, I can't quite make it out in your photographs?
Cheers!

 

[Little]

Tell me, how is your Hobbit doing, I can't quite make it out in your photographs?

Still too early. They have just started melting a few emerged leaves. I will post an update picture when / if any submerged leaves come out

 

[Little]

Tank is going through a rough patch. The Hobbit now is melting its emersed leaves but it’s generating a lot of fuzzy algae that took the pava with it. I’m going to keep gently removing the melted leaves and hope it all recovers.
Seems a side effect of all the melt is my first outbreak of diatoms and algae on the hardscape. I assume due to huge volumes of organic waste that my little water changes are not keeping up with.
Plan to do more frequent water changes and hope the shrimp don’t mind it

 

[Little]

To spite the aggressive melt and diatoms…. Added another plant light and it’s giving some nice ambience to this little used room.
Just did a water change hence a bit cloudy.

Also…. Check out my post on a Vortech MP10 for sale

https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/vortech-mp10-qd-quiet-drive-wave-maker-morpheus-ready.74097/post-747591

 

[Little]

The challenges continue.

Planeria outbreak. Lots of little white worms with arrowheads appeared. Again, I assume due to all the buce melt causing a ton of extra organics.

Current approach is:

25% water changes (twice a week) to reduce organics

Treating the planeria with “fluke solve aquarium” and have air stones on full.

Added a clithorn nerite to start cleaning the diatoms etc…

The shrimps definitely seem less happy right now. Most are hiding and a couple are overactive. I assume the increased water changes followed by medication is not ideal for them.

Hope to go back to a more stable state soon.

 

[Little]

Mini update.

Planaria are all gone. Shrimp are looking healthy and happy. Well except the two “mad patch brothers” who still dart around.

Diatom bloom is gone. Or rather the nerite cleaned the existing stuff and only minor new diatoms on the floating rings.

Plants still look like garbage due to melt. We had two burst pipes in my area over the last few weeks and got re routed and put back again so I think the water is very inconsistent. The TDS from tap one week was 400 and was 800 the next week….

I plan to start using RO water from a local supplier with 2h Aquarist “sky” to remineralise. Will just use it for weekly 10% water changes to have a very gradual change.

Have popped in some flamingo tissue culture and got some more moss in there. Will add some red hair grass this week too.

 

[Jorge O'Reilly]

400 from TAP? I thought my water was terrible with 165 consistent...

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I plan to start using RO water from a local supplier with 2h Aquarist “sky” to remineralise.

You can just use a <"dash of tap water">.

I thought my water was terrible with 165 consistent...

It really depends what the TDS (conductivity) ions are. Most of us in the SE corner of the UK have <"water from limestone aquifers"> and that is about 450 ppm TDS, even if it has very few ions in it, other than being saturated with calcium (Ca++) and bicarbonate (2HCO3-) ions.

cheers Darrel

 

[Little]

Cheers for the comments guys.
Yeah water down here is practically a solid.

 

[Jorge O'Reilly]

Hi all,

You can just use a <"dash of tap water">.

It really depends what the TDS (conductivity) ions are. Most of us in the SE corner of the UK have <"water from limestone aquifers"> and that is about 450 ppm TDS, even if it has very few ions in it, other than being saturated with calcium (Ca++) and bicarbonate (2HCO3-) ions.

cheers Darrel

I actually find that pretty interesting. I've never tested my tap water exhaustively, I will when I have an extra dime, but as I understand water from the Paraná basin is extremely soft, but at the water treatment plant lime is added. With regards to "soft water fish", would the resulting water be hard or soft? My point being, isn't water hardness precisely these calcium and bicarbonate ions?

Just checked the government's water provider page, they claim their aim is to have 400 ppm of "total alkalinity" which I suppose is the GH? General hardness? Because the number they provide for "dureza total" is the same, 400 ppm.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

.... With regards to "soft water fish", would the resulting water be hard or soft? My point being, isn't water hardness precisely these calcium and bicarbonate ions?...

It depends how much they add, but probably somewhere towards "hard".

Just checked the government's water provider page, they claim their aim is to have 400 ppm of "total alkalinity" which I suppose is the GH? General hardness? Because the number they provide for "dureza total" is the same, 400 ppm.

I think those are maximum permitted values.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Little]

Quick shout out for “spotless water” in Ashford. Just used the self service to fill a couple of jerrycans for RO water. Super cheap and very easy to use.

I had already purchased the ATP Sky (before seeing the great advice for a dash of hard tap water) so used that. I was really confused with the directions. It talks about dose in ml as opposed to grams. It’s a powder so feels weird to have to do calculations yourself in order to use a bit at a time (like my 3 liter water changes).

The website reads:
“Each 3.5g / 5ml per 60L adds 12ppm Calcium and 3.5ppm Magnesium (+2.5 dGH)
Recommended: 15ml per 60L of RO/RODI water.”

Would be helpful if it said grams per liter for RO underneath.

 

[hypnogogia]

Grams per Liter would be 0.06, difficult for most people to measure out. What I don’t get is why they don’t quote per 100L.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

It’s a powder so feels weird to have to do calculations yourself in order to use a bit at a time (like my 3 liter water changes).

Change three litres of RO for three litres of tank water, then lick the tip of your little finger, dip it in the "ATP Sky" and wash that small amount into your tank.

Measure the conductivity every couple of weeks and as long as it stays about the same? Carry on. If the conductivity goes down over time, and you think your water is too soft? Use a larger finger. If it continually creeps up? Change a bit more water.

If that is a bit ad hoc for you, you would need to use <"serial dilution"> as described in the blurb.

What I don’t get is why they don’t quote per 100L.

Yes, that would make much more sense and 6g in 100 litre.

cheers Darrel

 

[Little]

I have 30 liters of water storage so made up that much of RO water and Sky. That’s a handful of Darryl finger dippers lol.

 

[Little]

Grams per Liter would be 0.06, difficult for most people to measure out. What I don’t get is why they don’t quote per 100L.

Just re read that, I did a different calculation.
Maybe I miss understood the instructions.

I did 3.5g x 3 to give the RO value of 60l = 10.5g. Then I divided by 60 to give 0.175g per liter (17.5g per 100 liters).

So I used (0.175 x 30) 5.25g in my 30 liters of RO water.

 

[hypnogogia]

The website reads:
“Each 3.5g / 5ml per 60L adds 12ppm Calcium and 3.5ppm Magnesium (+2.5 dGH)
Recommended: 15ml per 60L of RO/RODI water.”

So it would be 3.5/60 to get the grams per Liter value = 0.058, or 0.06g/L. Therefore you need to add 0.06*30 for each 2.5dGH you want to achieve. What dGH increase were you looking for?