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Please help me.... Whats Going Wrong?!

The plants look great, the fish look good but your water seems to have a huge amount of particles in it!!!.

I notice you say you have removed the internal filter. What filter did you replace it with. How many days ago. Did you use the old media within the new filter.

I don't think the CO2 killed the shrimp. You would most likely have lost your fish as well or if it did you would've at least seen every fish at the surface.

The surface scum is not a worry too much, surface agitation at night-time will sort this out (or 24/7 and up the injection carefully to compensate for what is lost)

I'm not familiar with your dosing regime and I am guessing that your tank is about 200litres from the photographs but it seems to me that you are adding a lotbe adding in what I would add to 250ml of DI and then dose 4ml a day. Even though I lean dose and am low light I would say that is quite a lot to dose 3 times a week.

Also I don't understand why there is so much more MgSO4 than anything else in there?

I'm not overly sure but it just maybe due to such high quantities of powders added that there is somehing adding to the particle/scum issues.

And stop watching the bill. Its rubbish and always has been.

Much like yourself I used to go through periods where I didn't really have time for the tank. Wasn't a priority etc. Thingsz got better for me when I decided to daily dose (2 minutes spent just before I go to work in the morning) agitated the surface 24/7 and turned the CO2 up, reduced to 8 hour photoperiod and reduced my 'noon burst from 4 hours to 2 hours.

Filterwise I would pop down to Wilkos and get some Supawool from their pet department (79p) and stick it in the filter. It is unbranded filter floss and should remove some of the particles. Leave it for a few days and then remove it. My filter has no floss in it but you can see virtually zero particles in it.

Another tip would be to leave the tank volume in the title of the journal. Can be very helpful to others wether they are learning or helping.

AC
 
Of course you can at excessive levels. I'd check out if you are or not before taking my word on it.

Take for example Nitrates. the amount we normally dose even at double EI are not going to hurt fish. dose 10x that who knows!!

There must be some reason for the fear that newcomers to the planted tank scene have when adding nitrate is mentioned and we all know the outcome of overdosing copper?

Get someone a little more knowledgable to check the quantities for you. They just looked a little high to me.

AC
 
Clarke, Is this all that you have in your filter (excuse me, picture nabbed from your filter review):
2008-08-12002.jpg

If so I would fill one of the sponge trays with a couple of litres of sintered glass filter media for some serious filtration area. Effisubstrat Pro, or the JBL equivalent. It will take a month to mature but should make for a more robust filter colony. I'm sure surface scum is always linked to some combination of limited surface agitation, immature filtration and/or decay - but you say there is no decay.
Cheers,
 
I hope it isn't what is in the filter!! It says on that label that it has a nitrate removing sponge and also a phosphate removing sponge as well as carbon.

AC
 
You would be better off swapping the phosphate, nitrate carbon pads with something Ray mentioned, since those medias will remove beneficial plant fertilisers. The other media will also provide you with much better filtration. Incidentally, did you wash the new media before running the filter? Perhaps there was something in the new plastics that could cause cloudiness? Also, did you run the internal filter with the external, and if so, how long?
 
i didn't even read that part of the filter. No wonder my plants didn't do so well after the install of it. However, none of the sponges were in bags or anything and they all look the same. Will pickup some of that media stuff and swap the sponges for that.

Fingers crossed, working on these 3 day systems seem to be going ok but the water is still a bit cloudy.
 
nitrate and phosphate sponges are an add on with the filter and not included as standard so its not that. :?
 
Came back and my water was very green, plus more of the algae pictured in my journal.

Replanted the P Helferi and HC after removing the algae.

It looks like I've messed up my filter and it need cycling again. Whats the best method to get it through it quickly in my situation? Should I blackout to prevent the algae? No doubt I'll have to do 50% water changes each day.

Any top tips would be helpful.
 
TGM have bags of cycled media Clark. Or they did last time I was there. That might help you with the cycling?
 
Or do you have any other tanks/friends tanks you could seed the filter from? Maybe take some foam from another filter? 50% WC would probably do the plants good and wouldn't do the cycling process any harm since there will still be ammonia in there, so thats a good step. Or you could move the plants to another tank to keep them going, whilst blacking out this tank to kill off algae and waiting for the filter to mature? Also, did you check on the carbon pad? That would also remove ferts.
 
Nipped to AquaJardin today, got some ceramic substrate type media so added that. Also added some safestart too.
See how things go, if there's no improvement I might need to get some mature media from somewhere, but I'm in Dublin this weekend so this weekend is out of the question.

The LD water changer makes things easier.
 
I'm pleased to say that my tank is looking like it's back on track.
Water has returned to near enough clear and so starting to up the light and dosing levels slowly.
Only down side has been the P Helferi has gone a browny colour so hopefully that'll pickup. I've had that before and managed to sort it out.
 
No photos of before and after?? that would have been interesting to see 😉
 
I've always found that BGA is a nod towards a dodgy filter. The cause of BGA might be the low nitrate level, but IME a non-functioning filter causes the low nitrate in a normal setup. BGA is a pain to get rid of ones it starts and a 3 day blackout is usually a good idea.

How's it going now?

Interesting comment on the filter intake. Mine's quite low (in fact it's just above the gravel) and I've got quite a lot of particles floating around. It's quite heavily stocked including a pair of angels and a large bristlenose. What do people think about raising the intake. Does it make a difference?
 
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