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The Grassy knol

I'm glad to year , will check that out tomorrow , if that seller has scissors left then they are really good quality , can't moan for £2 either , will be using mine tomorrow .
Cheers


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So checked my filter twice over the last 2.5 weeks since the tanks been flooded and it seems spotlessly clean , not even the sponge has any kind of mulm yet .
Its no way near cycled as I haven't had a touch of nitrite yet , do I worry about this ??
Cheers


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Hi all,
Samjpikey said:
Its no way near cycled as I haven't had a touch of nitrite yet , do I worry about this ??
Click to expand...
You won't get any nitrite (NO2-), even if you had the kit (ion selective electrode) to measure it with.

Any ammonia produced from decomposition etc will be quickly scavenged by the plant mass. In the unlikely event of it being oxidised to NO2- that will also be assimilated into the plant tissue, and the same with any NO3-.
1vOhidU.jpg
Cycling as a concept isn't really relevant to us, we have plants, and plant/microbe systems are about an order of magnitude more efficient that microbial systems. Because the water is fully saturated with oxygen (you know it is saturated, because the HC is pearling), your tank could deal with a huge BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand).

The only way you could get a fully cycled microbe only tank with anything like the same capacity to deal with BOD is by having a large wet and dry trickle filter, where oxygenation would be achieved by having a very large gas exchange surface of trickling water. In this case the end result would be an increase in NO3- levels.

We don't get an increase in NO3 for 2 reasons, less ammonia enters biological filtration and the resultant nitrite and nitrate are converted into plant mass.

When you trimmed your carpet you exported that nitrogen.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks for that detailed description ,
So am I or am I not looking to 'cycle' my tank ?? As I keep reading about tank cycling and having to wait for a non-toxin tank .... ie 'Ammonia' levels being safe enough to add livestock .

If so Will the standard API test kit be accurate enough to measure this ?

Hope you don't mind answering this ,
Cheers




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Hi all,
Samjpikey said:
So am I or am I not looking to 'cycle' my tank ?? As I keep reading about tank cycling and having to wait for a non-toxin tank .... ie 'Ammonia' levels being safe enough to add livestock .
Click to expand...
No you don't need to cycle, your tank is fine to add fish to, as I said earlier the water quality in it will be much higher than in nearly any non-planted, "cycled tank". Cycling is a strange concept, and it isn't really relevant to planted tanks.

Have a look a this post and linked threads: <Should I fishless cycle a new planted tank? | UK Aquatic Plant Society>.

cheers Darrel
 
Thanks for that , I will have a read .
Cheers


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Anybody else ordered anything from fluid censor online ??

I've been waiting over 2 weeks now for some liquid carbon :/ .


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I ordered mine of eBay and was gutted when I visited there website to find the same product a third cheaper I emailed them via there website enquiring why but never received a reply left a sour taste and will consider other options before I use them again
Tanks looking good Sam
 
I'm on my last dose of carbon today so I'm
Hoping it does come tomorrow :/
How you getting on with your hc ??
I think I've had enough of it already .... Ive had to Trim it every week, now I'm regretting putting it in there ..... I have trimmed it to bare minimum and hopefully it won't grow bk .
Its nice dont get me wrong but I have so much of it that it takes to much time to trim .....
I may reconsider something else to replace :/
Cheers


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My hc has never recovered fully from the trim there's a bit of melt and some diatoms however has improved since I installed the second filter also added 12 amano shrimp and another 6 ottos to the tank today hopefully they will clean things up


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Think the tank has been running 4 weeks this Friday and all seems good .
The only algae I can see is on one rock but that could be down to the organics in that rock I don't know .
I did have some melt on the hc after a big trim but I think this is down to that I didn't dose anything for 2 days whilst I was doing water changes . That's the only symptom I can come up with.
Health and growth of the sraurogyne and hair grass couldn't be better .

I think flow is good , I get a good vortex motion throughout the entire tank top to bottom .
No suffice scum or algae (as yet)
Pearling happens on all plants .

I do however only get a ph drop of .6
From 6.0 -5.4
I dose liquid carbon @ 2 ml in morning and 3 ml at lights on .
Lights 4pm-10pm

Cheers




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Just checked ph and it was 6.2 . @ 7.30am

So it's dropping to 5.4 at lights on so its actually .8 of a drop , will double check that later but that number looks better .



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What ph pen you using Sam? I got tht yellow one from eBay but its broken.
Also do u find the co2 bubbles from the inline annoying, my tank looks so much better when the co2 turns off!
 
Yea I am using that yellow one, seems fine for me , how's yours broken ??

Well with my old reg the bubble counter had small bubbles and I didn't get a full on seven- up look but now with my new jbl bubble counter the bubble are bigger and I get that seven-up look haha !!

But I've tuned my co2 so I get 3 hours at the end of the photo period with it off ( 2 hours @ 100% light and 1 hour @ 25 % light)
Seems to work best and that's when also get the most pearling .
But your right is it annoying but it does work well 🙂


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