'The Full Monty' Has Left The Building last photos

[REDSTEVEO]

Hi All,

Well The Full Monty is on its second day of 'Black Out' and the UV Filter and pump has been installed which is increasing the flow around the tank, apart from the UV there is also an oxygenating feature on it. Water change done, as much brown diatomous algae siphoned out as I could, Flourish Excel added, Co2 Turned up now I just got too wait it out and see what happens in two days time.

Dying to feed the discus though🙁

Steve

 

[roadmaster]

They'll be fine.
I raised a group of juveniles that I fed four times a day for nearly six month's.
Was hard for me once they reached adult size to drop feeding's to twice daily and ultimately to once a day.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

They'll be fine.
I raised a group of juveniles that I fed four times a day for nearly six month's.
Was hard for me once they reached adult size to drop feeding's to twice daily and ultimately to once a day.

Thanks for those words of encouragement roadmaster, these discus are not quite juveniles, nor are they adults, they are somewhere in between. I have only just got them feeding so it seems a shame to stop now even if it isonly for a few days.

Any photos of your discus by any chance?

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[roadmaster]

Sorry,was ten year's ago, maybe twelve.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Well the Black Out Curtains finally came off today after 4 days. I can't say it has been total 24/7 Black Out because I have been feeding the discus at night time with no tank lights on only the house lights.

So today with everything ready to go I set out on a bit of a mission to do some maintenance, a lot of maintenance. I set myself a total time of 4 hours. The kit I had ready to go consisted of:

5 Litres of Siporax
2 Pairs of Eheim pipe connectors
1 Brand new UP Inline Atomiser (New version)
1 Brand New C02 Art Bubble Counter
Bubble Counter Fluid

First I removed the Black Out Curtains and things were looking much better. The internal UV Filter has been running 24/7 with the oxygenating feature turned on. Then off came the Black Smoked glass lids, then the lights removed. I siphoned out 60 lires of water, 20 with some debris and what was left of any algae, which wasn't much. The other 40 litres was kept for rinsing out all the filter substrate from both filters.

I disconnected everything and removed both filters. First I removed all the filter medium from the Eheim Professional 2 filter and replaced all three baskets with a mixture of brand new Siporax and some old Eheim Filter medium. Rinsed out the canister and flushed all the pipes clean, all mature filter medium was rinsed out in a bucket of tank water and the new Siporax was rinsed in the water to collect some of the bacteria.

I re assembled the Eheim 2 Filter and connected up the Eheim pipe connectors and fitted the new UP inline atomiser, 1 filter ready to go all done in less than an hour. Then I removed all the baskets (4) from the big Eheim Thermal Filter and placed each basket in a seperate bucket of mature tank water. I removed all the black plastic tubular filter medium and replaced it with brand new Siporax, again mixed with some of the old filter Eheim Clay ball medium. Overall I probably reduced the filter medium in each basket in both filters by a third.

Clive was right back on page 4 of this journal when he said there was far too much filter medium in both filters. The flow was becoming really slow and not efficient at all. So both filters now re assembled, I fitted another pair of Eheim pipe connectors on to the the thermal filter and placed both back in the cabinet. I rearranged all the positions of the inlets for both filters so there is now one either side of the weir. I removed the spray bar and fitted a wide spread outlet head on the Ehem Professional 2, connected up the new Bubble counter wth its new liquid inside.

I topped up the tank with a fresh lot of water with all my ferts, flourish Excel, Easy Carbo and got ready to get the filters going, just under two hours gone.

Then came the leak test, I connected up a vacuum pipe to suck the water up and into the filters, running the pipe into one of my 20 litre containers. Bingo all the water came flowing out into the container, no leaks🙂 Very happy indeed, and the flow coming out of both filters is nearly double what was coming out before, and crystal clear. Turned on the thermal heater, temperature showing 25 which was a bit cooler than I would have liked but the heater kicked in and soon it was back up to 28 degrees.

Two hours to do all that, I was quite chuffed with myself. Now it was going to take another hour and a bit to clean up the kitchen and tidy up the mess from all the bits and boxes. A total of three hours later and I'm sat in front of the tank drinking a cup of tea and the discus are out swimming around as if nothing had happened, how good is that.

So I got my camera out and took some photos which are now uploading on to Photobucket. As soon as they are up I will post any of them that look decent. The first thing I noticed was there are lots of white flecks in a lot of the photos, this is the air bubbles from the UV Filter whizzing round the tank and mixing with the Co2. Tomorrow I will take a few more without the oxygenating feature on.

I am off for my tea while the photos are loading up.

Cheers and thanks for looking..

Steve.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

New Photos as promised....

New Eheim Pipe connecors fitted, this is going to make things easier next time on filter maintenance...



All back in place, nice and tidy...



New version of UP Inline Co2 Diffuser fitted...



Dupla PH Meter showing current PH...



Cables and plugs all tidied up, honest...



Just need to tidy up the lower left side of the cabinet a bit...



A full tank shot, white bits are oxygen bubbles from the UV filter...



The Diatomous algae almost gone...



End of tank shot...



This end will get some tidying up and new plants next week...



Blue Diamond Discus on the hunt for food...



The Red Curipea joining the hunt for food...





Floating plants and the food amongst them, the discus looking for the Californian Black Worms...





The Hillock looking better than it did 4 days ago...



No more algae on the Amazon Sword Plants...



The tank is looking better now, although I think I am probably going to remove the Eleocharis and replace it with Echinodrus Tennellus instead. Some other plants going in next week..

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[Bhu]

Looking really good. Why are you swopping the eleocharis over? Tenellus is lovely and very easy to grow. A tank to be proud and happy of for sure!

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Looking really good. Why are you swopping the eleocharis over? Tenellus is lovely and very easy to grow. A tank to be proud and happy of for sure!

The Eleoharis is too fine and catches too much debris, I think the Tennellus will do better...

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[DivZero]

Maybe I missed it earlier, but why are you dosing both Excel and EasyCarbo?

Glad the tank is on its way to recovery!

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Maybe I missed it earlier, but why are you dosing both Excel and EasyCarbo?

Glad the tank is on its way to recovery!

One of the things about diatomous - brown algae is that it can be a number of causes, so I thought I would attack this from every angle in an attempt to get rid of it. I was already dosing Flourish Excel and that wasn't having the effect I was looking for. I already had my Co2 turned up as high as I thought I could get away with without harming the fish, so I supplemented it with Easy Carbo. So far it seems to be working, obviously the Black Out helped but I am sure the internal UV is also having an effect. The water seems to have a much clearer brighter edge to it, similar to as if it had been polished using activated carbon in the filter.

Why do you ask, would you be advising against it?

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[DivZero]

One of the things about diatomous - brown algae is that it can be a number of causes, so I thought I would attack this from every angle in an attempt to get rid of it. I was already dosing Flourish Excel and that wasn't having the effect I was looking for. I already had my Co2 turned up as high as I thought I could get away with without harming the fish, so I supplemented it with Easy Carbo. So far it seems to be working, obviously the Black Out helped but I am sure the internal UV is also having an effect. The water seems to have a much clearer brighter edge to it, similar to as if it had been polished using activated carbon in the filter.
Why do you ask, would you be advising against it?

The active ingredient for both Excel and EasyCarbo are the same: gluteraldehyde, which plants can use as carbon source (which is referred to liquid CO2 in marketing terms) and have the side effect of being toxic to many sorts of algae in low concentrations. Beware that it's toxic for just about anything at higher concentrations. The products are basically the same but will most likely have a slightly different concentration of gluteraldehyde and/or dosing regime. One of the things people do using either product is increase the dosage (in most cases the double dose, which is only recommended for heavily planted tanks) isn't a problem for your fish/shrimp (but don't take my word for it, look it up if in doubt!). So basically by adding both Excel and EasyCarbo you are increasing the concentration of gluteraldehyde which is helping you fight your algae. I personally don't know if it helps against diatomous, but if it is, the same thing applies. Also have a look at this topic: http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/anyone-tried-easy-life-easycarbo.441/

So basically I wouldn't advice against it if it hasn't been giving you problems with your fish. But using both Excel and EasyCarbo should have the same effect of double dosing either Excel or EasyCarbo.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Okay that makes a lot of sense. I am only dosing the minimum recommended dose of each, but combined that may be the double dosage so I wil take heed of your warning.

Thanks very much...

Steve.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Here is somthing I have not heard of before, it is from Seachem called 'Stability'

Looks a great quality product, something I used yesterday while I was changing all the filter media. You don't need much so it lasts for ages. See the link below.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Stability.html

Any one used this before?

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[DivZero]

Here is somthing I have not heard of before, it is from Seachem called 'Stability'

Looks a great quality product, something I used yesterday while I was changing all the filter media. You don't need much so it lasts for ages. See the link below.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Stability.html

Any one used this before?

Cheers,

Steve.

The bacteria used in competing products are inherently unstable. The conditions necessary for their growth and development fall into a very narrow range of temperatures, pH, organic loads, etc. When any of these parameters are not strictly within the proper range, the bacterial culture quickly crashes and dies. Stability® does not contain any of the aforementioned bacteria.

The bacteria strains in Stability® have been in development for over a decade. The necessary conditions for growth of our bacterial strains encompass a very broad range. When other bacteria begin to die off (usually from high organic loads caused by the undetected death of an organism), Stability® simply works harder and grows faster! The strains function in fresh or saltwater. Stability® contains both nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, a blend found in no other product.

I have studied biotechnology and this is a great pile of horse blahblahblahblah they are selling! They are claiming to have some form of super advanced (genetically modified???) uber bacteria to add to your aquarium and try to tell you your ordinaire run of the mill bacteria of both the competion and found in nature are weak, pathetic and fragile. This isn't true. Bacteria are hardy and can adapt to a wide range of conditions. And even if the above was true... all they are selling are denitrifying bacteria to easily/more quickly populate your filter and cycle your tank. But guess what... your tank is already cycled and you have literally billions of denitrifying bacteria in your filter media (and the substrate of your tank). It's more than likely that these bacteria sold by Seachem are either the same as there are already found in your filter or a specific hardy variant enabling it to survive for long periods of time in the capsules. But what this tells me is that these hardy bacteria are tougher and this always comes at a price: slower growth speeds. If you were to add these to your aquarium, they will be outcompeted by the fastest growing bacteria already present in your filter... "development for over a decade" you say? Try evolution of literally billions of years ...

I beg you to not waste money on this product.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Ooops I'm thinking 'Cat Amongst the Pigeons' here!! Shame I have already got it, the great news is I got it for free as a 'reward' so no harm done...

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[DivZero]

Well, adding this wont benefit you. But you can always get/start a new aquarium 😉

 

[REDSTEVEO]

I'm always a sucker for a good advertising spiel🙁 The details on the website got me...

Steve.

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Sunday - Maintenance Step 2.

Well today I bit the bullet and removed most if not all the Eleocharis from the tank. A fair few bits of substrate support came out with it. I pruned the Monte Carlos to within an inch of its life, the damn thing was about three inches thick, no wonder there was a flow problem around it. I also removed some smaller pieces of rock from around the base of the hillock, they were not adding anything to the look and just took up space and reduced the flow so they are out.

I regrouped some of the Staurgyrene and some of the Altanantheri Reinecki then leveled the sand, siphoned out about 80 litres of water with the muck resulting as a result of the removal of the Eleocharis.

Topped up the water, cranked up the Co2 added Flourish Excel and now am waiting for the water to clear. I will take some photos tomorrow when things have settled down.

Cheers,

Steve.

 

[DivZero]

Where are the pictures? 😛

Everything still running stable since the blackout?

 

[REDSTEVEO]

Hi DivZero,

Sorry no pictures yet, still waiting for things to settle down. I came home from work today and all the discus were out looking for food, which is a first, it is normally only one or two of them! I have got some more plants coming this week, maybe tomorrow. So I will take a couple of pictures of how it looks now since the big trim and a few after the new plants have gone in.

I am even thinking of removing the rest of the Monte Carlos now, it is too thick, traps muck and doesn't really do anything for the look of the scape. So already after two months since it was planted I am rethinking the scape in terms of the fish in there.

Cheers,

Steve.