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Water change 50% net or gross ?

Yeah pre-Sumerian era here too, and am in the middle of cycling so have transported over 600 litres this weekend by bucket. I'm somehow scared of the tech (and the tightly coiled green tubing) and transporting it through the house and up the garden. Tried a pump and it flipped off the glass and I ended up with a large scale mop-up project. Still hoping for the beam the water out solution
 
Yeah pre-Sumerian era here too, and am in the middle of cycling so have transported over 600 litres this weekend by bucket. I'm somehow scared of the tech (and the tightly coiled green tubing) and transporting it through the house and up the garden. Tried a pump and it flipped off the glass and I ended up with a large scale mop-up project. Still hoping for the beam the water out solution
@oddn0ise Holy smokes 600 liters by bucket! ... that makes my weekly 3 to 4 20 liter buckets per tank (have 2 x 150L tanks) sound like a walk in the park... You gotta figure out a way to make that easier for yourself!
 
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Investing in 5 meters of hose and a small pump was the best decision ever... Empty out x buckets worth of water. Put in x buckets worth of conditioner into the bucket sitting in the sink, put pump in, run hose back to the tank. Switch on pump and tun run tap until tank is full again.
 
Investing in 5 meters of hose and a small pump was the best decision ever... Empty out x buckets worth of water. Put in x buckets worth of conditioner into the bucket sitting in the sink, put pump in, run hose back to the tank. Switch on pump and tun run tap until tank is full again.
Yeah.....duh, and guess what? Minnesota has at least 10,000 lakes. You would thinkthese people would be at the forefront of water management innovation and technology, but no. Having said that, I did buy my molded polystyrene modular sump from a Minnesota company, so this lack of innovation must just affect the stubborn traditionalists.
The biochemistry aspects of this sounds suspiciously related to another thread on Ca/Mg Gluconate usage for water remineralization - could you take a look? would love to hear your take on what's going on.
I've looked at that thread and it seems like a good possibility that the cloudiness may be due to bacterial reaction. I don't know exactly which tank bacteria can directly metabolize gluconate as opposed to glucose. There is a difference in the metabolic pathways when comparing the two.

It could be innocuous but generally I'm not really a fan of supporting large bacterial colonies simply because they typically are aerobic and so take oxygen away from the fish and plants. Also, I'm not really sure what the residue of this gluconate metabolism would be. Whatever it is, it should be gotten rid of, and this might suggest an endless water change loop (maybe). So if you are doing all this for shrimp there could be a downside. I might have missed it somewhere along the way and you may have rejected it for some reason, but CaCl is a great way to increase Ca without increasing the KH, and Mg, well, you don't really need much of this stuff for plants at all (maybe for shrimp again?). Mg just has to be non-zero, so a little bit of Epsom Salts is all you need from a plant perspective.

Plants accrue the micronutrients within the leaves and these metals never move from the leaf, so if the dosing is regular next week the leaves will have more of everything than they do this week. I'm also not sure what the aversion is to high SO4 either, unless it's another shrimp thing. It could be that you're overthinking the scheme. Unless the shrimp species is something out of the ordinary I don't think it's necessary to optimize the water's content to this level of precision.

Cheers,
 
Yeah.....duh, and guess what? Minnesota has at least 10,000 lakes. You would thinkthese people would be at the forefront of water management innovation and technology, but no. Having said that, I did buy my molded polystyrene modular sump from a Minnesota company, so this lack of innovation must just affect the stubborn traditionalists.
LOL @ceg4048, that is hilarious and true... It's gotta be all those stubborn Scandinavians around here that are holding us back ... Oh, molded polystyrene sump that sounds like a bucket to me! :lol:

I've looked at that thread and it seems like a good possibility that the cloudiness may be due to bacterial reaction. I don't know exactly which tank bacteria can directly metabolize gluconate as opposed to glucose. There is a difference in the metabolic pathways when comparing the two.
It could be innocuous but generally I'm not really a fan of supporting large bacterial colonies simply because they typically are aerobic and so take oxygen away from the fish and plants.
Also, I'm not really sure what the residue of this gluconate metabolism would be. Whatever it is, it should be gotten rid of, and this might suggest an endless water change loop (maybe). So if you are doing all this for shrimp there could be a downside. I might have missed it somewhere along the way and you may have rejected it for some reason, but CaCl is a great way to increase Ca without increasing the KH, and Mg, well, you don't really need much of this stuff for plants at all (maybe for shrimp again?). Mg just has to be non-zero, so a little bit of Epsom Salts is all you need from a plant perspective.
Plants accrue the micronutrients within the leaves and these metals never move from the leaf, so if the dosing is regular next week the leaves will have more of everything than they do this week. I'm also not sure what the aversion is to high SO4 either, unless it's another shrimp thing. It could be that you're overthinking the scheme. Unless the shrimp species is something out of the ordinary I don't think it's necessary to optimize the water's content to this level of precision.
Yes, this was all mostly a shrimp and shrimplet thing, by trying to get rid of the additional Chlorides and Sulphates that the tanks won't really benefit from anyway, as far as I understand. With CaCl I couldn't really get my TDS down to the level I was aiming at while retaining the ~7 GH and NPK dosing, that is why I switched over to CaSO4, which shaved off quite a bit of the TDS and that actually has worked out just fine - by switching from CaCl to CaSo4 I essentially traded the 57 ppm of chloride with 26 ppm of sulphate, while keeping the same amount (32 ppm) of Ca.
I randomly discovered the Ca Gluconate and asked around if that would be an option. No one around here seem to have tried it and I couldn't find good references elsewhere of anyone using Gluconate based compounds in freshwater tanks - except for Gluconate combined with Fe (which supposedly improves the availability / plant uptake of the Iron?) and I was further speculating (yes, overthinking I guess...) that the carbon content of the Gluconate could be beneficial for the plants as well (?), so I thought it would be worthwhile to take a shot at using Ca Gluconate (and a small amount of Mg Gluconate). I didn't work out the way I had hoped. The bloom/cloudiness was obviously not pleasant to deal with, not to mention the fear of jepodizing the livestock and plants due to oxygen depletion if the cloudiness was indeed caused by a bacterial reaction. So I am back on CaSO4 and will stick to that. My remineralization scheme is actually very simple - 4 compounds mixed with my weekly Tap/RO water gives my tanks all the Ca,Mg and NPK that they need.

Thanks a bunch for taking a look at this.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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No one around here seem to have tried it and I couldn't find good references elsewhere of anyone using Gluconate based compounds in freshwater tanks - except for Gluconate combined with Fe (which supposedly improves the availability / plant uptake of the Iron?) and I was further speculating (yes, overthinking I guess...) that the carbon content of the Gluconate could be beneficial for the plants as well (?)
Yes, ferrous gluconate is a popular addition used as a component in some commercial mixes as well as in DIY mixes, but you're only adding small amounts to raise the iron by fractional amounts, like 0.4ppm. But no, as mentioned, plants cannot use this carbohydrate. The Rubisco molecule only recognizes and sequesters CO2 and O2 (by mistake). Anyway, we are just guessing that the cloudiness is an organic reaction. It could also simply be a slow to develop calcium or magnesium precipitation with some anion in the tank water. Without a microscope or other tool it's just not clear (no pun intended).
It's gotta be all those stubborn Scandinavians around here that are holding us back ..
Oh, no doubt mate. Studies indicate that all those years of ice fishing causes frostbite of the temporal lobes.
Neither the Sumerians, the Arcadians, the Hittites nor the Egyptians had to worry about frostbite, so yeah, they were free to innovate as their lobes were firing on all cylinders. Pity about the Scandinavians - they could only think about how to be green...
Oh, molded polystyrene sump that sounds like a bucket to me! :lol:
Yeah, true but you see, that's an innovative way to use a bucket. While everyone else builds their sumps using acrylic panels and glue, which creates seams that fail, buckets are seamless, so they can't fail. The system is modular, so it has limitless potential as you can add modules whenever you want. Biofilm or algae cannot stick to the polystyrene so the buckets are super easy to clean. Check out the promo (cheesy but you get the idea)=>


Cheers,
 
Yes, ferrous gluconate is a popular addition used as a component in some commercial mixes as well as in DIY mixes, but you're only adding small amounts to raise the iron by fractional amounts, like 0.4ppm. But no, as mentioned, plants cannot use this carbohydrate. The Rubisco molecule only recognizes and sequesters CO2 and O2 (by mistake). Anyway, we are just guessing that the cloudiness is an organic reaction. It could also simply be a slow to develop calcium or magnesium precipitation with some anion in the tank water. Without a microscope or other tool it's just not clear (no pun intended).
Hi @ceg4048 Thanks... on the carbohydrates, it's interesting that some products claim the ferrous gluconate has the added bonus of being a source of carbon... Well, not the first time these companies have made unfounded claims to sell their products.

Oh, no doubt mate. Studies indicate that all those years of ice fishing causes frostbite of the temporal lobes.
That explanation makes perfect sense - not to mention the accompanying copious alcohol consumption :lol:

Yeah, true but you see, that's an innovative way to use a bucket. While everyone else builds their sumps using acrylic panels and glue, which creates seams that fail, buckets are seamless, so they can't fail. The system is modular, so it has limitless potential as you can add modules whenever you want. Biofilm or algae cannot stick to the polystyrene so the buckets are super easy to clean. Check out the promo (cheesy but you get the idea)=>

Wow, that is some serious badass filtration! I always thought of sump filtration as something that mostly applied to reef tanks... I guess not. Never heard of CustomAquariums before - looks like a solid company for custom builds - should I ever go down that path.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Well, not the first time these companies have made unfounded claims to sell their products.
Yes, it's just another subroutine which exists as part of a neural-interactive program we call The Matrix.
I always thought of sump filtration as something that mostly applied to reef tanks
Well, even though it's the reefers who drive the developments in this hobby the sump is relevant to any type of water. The sumps water volume adds to the tanks volume enhancing temperature stability. You can also put all of your equipment in the sump and get them out of the tank for visual appeal. Also you can run multiple tanks off the same sump. The only real downside is that it's an open loop system, so it's very easy to flood your floor. With a canister (another brilliant use of a bucket) which is a closed loop, what goes in exactly matches what's going out, automatically, but with a sump you have to tweak the pump to send exactly the same amount of water back to the tank as what is falling into the sump.

Cheers,
 
Yes, it's just another subroutine which exists as part of a neural-interactive program we call The Matrix.
... The Matrix... That sounds oddly familiar... Should I go ask Alice for details?... Well, now I just can't wait for the day of Resurrections. :cool:

Well, even though it's the reefers who drive the developments in this hobby the sump is relevant to any type of water. The sumps water volume adds to the tanks volume enhancing temperature stability. You can also put all of your equipment in the sump and get them out of the tank for visual appeal. Also you can run multiple tanks off the same sump. The only real downside is that it's an open loop system, so it's very easy to flood your floor. With a canister (another brilliant use of a bucket) which is a closed loop, what goes in exactly matches what's going out, automatically, but with a sump you have to tweak the pump to send exactly the same amount of water back to the tank as what is falling into the sump.
I hear you on the sumps... we could definitely take some cues from the reefers... A buddy of mine runs a reef tank. It's a whole different ballgame compared to what I am doing.. His sump tank (i.e. filter) is almost as big as the tank itself (I send him the info on the CustomAquariums modular sump btw.). Every time I talk to him he is always in the middle of maintenance, adding Strontium or something weird to his tank :) ... most of the time I have absolutely no clue what he is talking about with respect to his tank, but the fish and corals look incredible! .. and guess what, he actually wants certain algae for symbiotic purposes to grow in his tank.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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I hear you on the sumps... we could definitely take some cues from the reefers... A buddy of mine runs a reef tank. It's a whole different ballgame compared to what I am doing.. His sump tank (i.e. filter) is almost as big as the tank itself (I send him the info on the CustomAquariums modular sump btw.). Every time I talk to him he is always in the middle of maintenance, adding Strontium or something weird to his tank :) ... most of the time I have absolutely no clue what he is talking about with respect to his tank, but the fish and corals look incredible! .. and guess what, he actually wants certain algae for symbiotic purposes to grow in his tank.
Yep, it is a sight to behold when you get the salt tank set properly, but it's in the "just too hard" category.
Hope your friend finds the info useful The sumps really do add a lot of water. I add up the volume of my four modules and they total about 100 US gallons versus the tank which is about 200 USG. I always have to remember to dose EI for a 300 USG tank. A lot more CO2 is used as well...:arghh:
Well, now I just can't wait for the day of Resurrections. :cool:
You know, I saw the trailer and I kept wishing Keanu would have ditched the John Wick beard...It really dilutes the immersion.

Cheers
 
You know, I saw the trailer and I kept wishing Keanu would have ditched the John Wick beard...It really dilutes the immersion.
I hear you on the J Wick beard... I do like the new cast of characters with some familiar faces thrown in. Will miss Fishburne though, but think Abdul-Mateen will do great - he definitely got the cool factor down.
 
There's at least one way that can happen. If a tank hasn't had any proper water changes for a long time, perhaps if if you're trying to help some-one rescue a tank from neglect, a big change can be too much for the fish that have gradually adapted to the old water. It depends on the fish and the circumstances, so doesn't always happen. But with a badly neglected tank it can be safer to start with smaller water changes and build up.
But big, regular, frequent water changes are safe for any fish I've come across.
Yeah, exactly.. And since I have been seeing much happier fish after doing that large water changes, so I just keep doing only those.
 
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