Sedona - 20L (Liza's Tank - Update)

[aaronnorth]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

not sure about the time it is evaporating in, but on mine, my equipment is exposed, and my room temp is around 22C, after 2 months it still doesnt need refilling and it could easily last another month the way it is going.

 

[jay]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

I just fill it right up and only ever changed the water when I set up on a new tank.

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Thank you for your anwers, I guess will wait for the clear hose to arrive to see where the water disappears from the bubble counter... I might also temporarily replace it with the new one from my big tank to see if it does the same thing. Honestly, I'm a little fed up with this messy CO2 equipment business. I am adjusting, changing, repairing, adjusting again, and-so-on for two months now. Also, can't seem to be able to find the right amount of CO2 / nutrient dosing quantities and staghorn algae grow like mad. Poor CO2 injection aside, can Potassium excess from the TPN+ be causing staghorn algea growth?

Yesterday the cannister of my Eheim 2211 cracked as I tightened the outflow pipe too much. What a mess, I had to rush to the nearest store to get a replacement. The filter was off for 2 hours. One Oto died as a result. I guess he was weekended anyway, he was in the tank for 3 weeks only. Would not eat the zucchini like the other two. They say if Otos survive the 3 weeks they have good chances. I certainly hope so.

I picked up my custom-made CO2 and O2 glassware yesterday, they look really good in the tank, repacing the black hosing. It also was surprisingly cheap.

I visited the biggest (!) Hungarian Fishkeeping Expo on Sunday. They had 30 tanks with about 5 exhibitors. OMG what a sad story this is... I was not expecting an Interzoo, but 5 tables??? And Micranthemum Umbrosum being sold as Glosso by the biggest independent retailer??? German shrimp expert Chris Lukhaup was here for a lecture though. That was interesting.

Thanks for reading...

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Today I bought 2 additional Otos. The "old" ones are in the tank for 3 weeks already. Check this photo out - on the left you see one of the newcomers. On the right you have the fat guy from earlier. What a difference. 🙂

I read somewhere that they usually arrive starved from the LFS. Sad but true.

 

[LondonDragon]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

I read somewhere that they usually arrive starved from the LFS. Sad but true.

Nice Ottos and nice photography 😉 it will be fat like the other one in no time 😉 good luck

 

[a1Matt]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

I read somewhere once... "a fat oto is a happy oto"

I couldn't agree more and am sure your newcomers will 'cheer up' in no time at all 😀

 

[jay]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

I read somewhere once... "a fat oto is a happy oto"

Mine must be grinning like Cheshire cats then.

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Paulo, jay, a1Matt, thx for the replies. The new Otos seem to do fine for now, bellies rounding. 🙂

I finally have all the CO2 equipment working properly. I installed the clear hosing from AquaEssentials, I changed the bubble counter and finally there's no water loss whatsoever. When on, bubble rate is constant 72 per minute. The drop checker is lime green, plants pearling like crazy and fish not suffering from it.

The algae issue however is not fine. The whole mess with the CO2, switching to smaller fish (thus less load on the tank), replanting the FG with Glosso and a filter canister crack seem to have caused serious imbalances in this small tank, so staghorn algae took over. It spread from the Fern next to the filter outlet to the Glosso in the FG. Strangely it mostly grows in areas with higher CO2 distribution.

At Clive's advice (thank you again for that) I increased the CO2 injection rate a couple of days ago. As a result the Glosso seems to be spreading nicely. I installed a third 6W tube with reflectors, so now I have 23W total for the 4 gallon so I kinda' hit the WPG high-light requirement. 🙂 I know I will have to increase dosing and CO2 accordingly.

Just to clear this staghorn algae mess quickly I decided to do a 3-day blackout too. I'll be gone tonight for the Munich festival anyway.

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Blackout did not to help get rid of staghorn algae plus another type appeared on the Glosso.

This is the tank picture as of today (please ignore the poor quality, I really feel ashamed of my tank full-shot photography skills 😳 ):

I know that staghorn algae can be a fluctuating CO2 sign. On the tank shot you can see that the drop checker color is light-green at the start of photo period. (CO2 switched on 1 hour before lights on. I changed it to 2 hours today to provide more CO2 at start.) The light green color changes during the day only to be on the yellow side at lights off:

Does that qualify as fluctuation inducing SA?

On another issue -- promise to open a new topic for this in due time:

It took ages but I'm almost ready to set up my 240L tank. I bought it in April. It's still empty, waiting for me to mature . Anyway, I plan having two Eheim 2028 filters with two Aquamas in-line reactors -- CO2 being supplied through a Y divider. I am also thinking to do the airing through the reactor itself with another Y connector and a series of check valves but I'm afraid it will lead to air accumulation at the top of the reactor and thus high noise-levels.

I read here that JamesC and Ray are already using this combination so what do you guys think of this?

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

After doing some thinking I suspect that the Eheim Classic 2211 filter might be too slow for my tank, thus not providing enough flow to deliver CO2 to the plants. The spec. says it has a 300 lph turnover. Sure, we know what numbers Eheim put on their fact-sheets. 🙂 Well, I'm thinking of upgrading to 2222 Pro (500 / 350 w. load lph) or 2224 Pro (700 / 500 lph). Please help me decide which one...

Also, I had surface scum and I recently found Clive's reply on one of the other journals:

...from what I've seen is that surface scum is often an indication of stressed plants leaching proteins back into the water column. My first inclination is to increase nutrient dosing first before I try making adjustments to anything else... As bizarre as it may sound I normally equate surface scum with starvation.

I wonder if 1ml/20l/day of TPN+ is too little. This is what George Farmer usually doses though. Should I try increasing?

Any thoughts on my previous posts? Please, I feel lonely here. 🙂

 

[ceg4048]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Hi keymaker,
Normally when George gives his dosing numbers he almost always gives it with a proviso, and that is that he lives in an area where the water supply is reportedly high in NO3/PO4 due to runoff. This is an important caveat and every tank is different so one cannot simply use his numbers blindly without considering the properties of ones own water supply and tank conditions. If you add more CO2 oftentimes an increase in NO3/PO4 is a good idea.

Having said that the staghorn algae is not typically associated with NO3/PO4, but the surface scum is a combination of CO2 and/or NO3/PO4. Our rule of thumb for flow rates is 10X tank volume filter rating. This 10X rule already takes into account that the filters only ever deliver 40%-50% of their rated flow so no further calculations need to be applied, however depending on your flow patterns and biomass geometry it may be that you need more (George typically uses the 20X rule in very small tanks). So it could easily be that your injection rate and timing is adequate but that flow to the carpet plants is marginal for example. There is quite a bit of biomass in the tank so it will help to thin it out a bit.

Having added more light you have given yourself less margin of error so cutting back the lighting level, for example during the hours that you are not home, will help.

Also, are you using 4dKH distilled water in your drop checker? If not you could have false high reading in the dropchecker if you use tank water in it.

Cheers,

 

[vauxhallmark]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Also, are you using 4dKH distilled water in your drop checker? If not you could have false high reading in the dropchecker if you use tank water in it.

Cheers,

It could just as easily be giving a false low reading - where I live (in London) the KH of tap water is 18. If I used that in a drop checker, to get to the same colour (pH) that 4KH water shows in the drop checker, I would have to raise CO2 levels to nearly 150! If I used 18KH water in the drop checker and raised CO2 levels to 30ppm the reagent would still be blue at pH7.3, giving me a false low reading (if I was aiming for green).

Mark

 

[ceg4048]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Mark,
Well, false lows are easy to tell because the fish would have been annihilated long before keymaker's dropchecker reached the yellow color. Also there is CO2 related algae in the tank so it's a safe bet that if tank water is being used it's reading a false high rather than a false low. With all the other acids in tank water it's very unusual to see dropcheckers reading false lows.

Cheers,

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

If you add more CO2 oftentimes an increase in NO3/PO4 is a good idea.

Ok, the NO3 liquid test tells me I have approx. 12.5 mg/l in my tank. Thats in the morning. It looks like my tap water has about the same amount.

Having said that the staghorn algae is not typically associated with NO3/PO4, but the surface scum is a combination of CO2 and/or NO3/PO4.

I will certainly increase TPN+ dosing from 20 drops to 30 for a couple of weeks to see what happens.

Our rule of thumb for flow rates is 10X tank volume filter rating. This 10X rule already takes into account that the filters only ever deliver 40%-50% of their rated flow .... George typically uses the 20X rule in very small tanks...

Just bought and I am about to install an Eheim Pro 2222 to replace the Classic 2211. The flow rate will be 500 instead of 300 with more than double the size - thus I will make it less stuffed.

Having added more light you have given yourself less margin of error so cutting back the lighting level, for example during the hours that you are not home, will help.

No way. 🙂 The point of the whole "exercise" is to find that narrow balance line in this little tank, so I will be prepared for everything in the big tank... Better to learn how to handle a more difficult condition.

are you using 4dKH distilled water in your drop checker?

You obviously do not know me. I'm the type of guy who bought his big fishtank in April, and it is still empty waiting for me to cycle. 🙂 I read everything, I learn fast. The only problem is that I found out that most of the fishkeeping knowledge comes with experience.

Of course, my drop checker has the 4dKH water. 🙂 I actually have two drop-checkers in the tank, a Dennerle with it's original solution from before, and one ADA with a ready-made AquaRebell CO2-KH4 solution ordered separately from Germany. Both have the very same color.

... the fish would have been annihilated long before keymaker's dropchecker reached the yellow color.

Is this how a yellow drop checker should look like? :? I thought there's still way to go to yellow.

Oh, I just realized something: there is a great chance of CO2 gas being "trapped" in the drop checker. Being a small tank, there is not enough space to separate the drop checker from the diffuser. They are simply too close! Some of the CO2 bubbles - on their way up - manage to land in the drop checker! This is not how drop checkers are supposed to work. The tank water is supposed to release the gas already dissolved in it.

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Update: I finally realized that low nutrition levels were the main cause of plant decay and ammonia spikes in the tank. After increasing TPN+ dosage to 2ml/20l/day things have stabilized somewhat. But I can't get rid of the already grown staghorn algae. Ugly stuff:

Moved the drop checker near the glosso, it's light green (upper right corner on the last pic.), 84 bpm should be enough CO2...

-----

In my preps for the 260l tank I found the following rock in a LFS (said to be a pagoda stone from South Africa, but guess it's not really...):

I want to buy 30kg of these but my concern is that after dripping some PH-Minus on it I can see heavy bubbling so it might raise the KH that is originally 9. I know it depends on a lot of factors, but how much do you think it would increase my tank's KH? Sure looks like I'm in a desperate need of a good link discussing the water parameter changes induced by rocks.

What about the pagoda stone used by the winner at the ADA Contest in 2008? Does that react to PH-Minus in the same way?

 

[LondonDragon]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

In my preps for the 260l tank I found the following rock in a LFS (said to be a pagoda stone from South Africa, but guess it's not really...):

It is Pagoda stone 😉 now if it comes from South Africa no idea! lol

 

[Themuleous]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

If you've sorted out the cause of the staghorn, then overdosing excel will get rid of the stuff you have at the moment. Very effectively as well. Works a treat 😉

Sam

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

Thanks for the answers!

Paulo, I guess I will have to put the stone in the nano tank, once I got rid of all the algae to see what does it do to the KH. If it proves OK, I'm gonna get the whole bag... I just feel so sorry for this little tank, once I sort something out I'm immediately going for the next experiment to ruin everything. Grrr.

My question stands though: does anyone know of a good site or article about different rocks in the fishtank and water chemistry changes?

Themuleous, thanks mate, I will take your advice and overdose Easy Carbo directly next to the algae, see if it speeds things up.

I made a photo of one of my drop checkers yesterday - I think it turned out pretty good:

 

[keymaker]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

It's US election day, so here's the poll: 🙂 I am planning a full rescape of this tank, which layout do you like?

1.

2.

 

[Stu Worrall]

Re: Liza's 20L Nano Tank

no 1 does it for me. the centre rock is too dominent in the second one i think