Recent content by Katch

Thanks for the likes and comments. I'll try for some better photos when I get a chance but 10 month old daughter taking up lots of my time! Need to clean the glass and get rid of some of the snails... Plants: Background left to right; Amazon sword (will probably pull these in time but...

Just realised it's been 3 months since I planted and no update. Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

Snake oil in bottles... this hobby is full of it.

Generally (and I do mean generally), hobbyists cycling their tanks want to build an effective bio filter as quickly as possible so that they can get on with stocking their tank. Fishless cycling with an added ammonia source has been proven time and again as a reliable method of doing this...

The purpose of raising the pH and adding buffering capacity to the water is to safe-guard against bio-acidification caused by nitrate spikes during the cycle that can crash the pH of soft acidic water below the threshold where nitrospira sp. and nitrosoma sp. bacteria will multiply and be active.

This is just not true and in no way supported by the evidence of hundreds of successful fishless cycles. I can point you to dozens of cases of people raising their pH to 8 to cycle then dropping down to 6.5 with a 100% water change after the cycle completes. The tank cycled at pH 8 will still...

The issue is a cycling tank will generate spikes of nitrite and nitrate. If your water is pretty soft and acidic to start with, these spikes can cause the pH to crash and stall the development of nitrospira bacteria (the ones that eat nitrite and turn it into nitrate) Optimum pH range for the...

nomnomnomnomn

Used one on my last marine tank - loud but great ability to control flow and create waves.

no - was just looking at it as an option. Trying to stay low-tech for my new tank if possible. From reading the instructions the interval just sets the frequency of the pump delivering. If you set it to 1 it will deliver every day, so two pumps set to one will both deliver every day. Set the...

I was wondering this as well - from my reading of the instructions it may not be possible. Try setting one pump to interval 2 and one to interval 3 - this at least should get it dosing on different days

Issue....

Quick update. Picked up some dennerle quartz substrate cheap from amazon (£7.35 a bag) Mixed a bag of original aqua soil with John innes no. 3 about 50/50. Laid down a good layer of soil, put some greenhouse shading on top and capped with the quartz gravel. Flooding now. Will be letting...

Yup Aip - hot soldering iron for about 30 secs

I used to spend a lot of time over at ultimate reef when I was going through my salty phase - http://www.ultimatereef.net/ probably the most comprehensive resource around.