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Internal UV Filter Some Benefits - Jury is still Out!!

Thanks X3NiTH for your contribution to this discussion. I definitely think I need something to buffer up the GH and the KH in the tank, I have been adding some SERA Mineral salts that I used to add to RO water when I used RO before so that is what is probably buffering the KH to 1. The Nerites are doing a great job at the moment of cleaning up the rocks, I have taken quite a shine to them.

This morning I did a water change and removed some of the rock at the right hand side of the tank which seemed to be in the way of the water flow. I am trying to look at this from every angle to rid this stuff from my tank. I even wondered if the plastic substrate supports from TGM could be leaching something in reaction with the Co2, but Jim uses them and doesn't have the same problems.

I have tried having the Co2 on 24/7 but on a lower bubble rate of around 45 per minute and it made no difference. I have just connected up my Dupla PH Controller that I have always used in the past and set the PH to come on as soon as it goes above 6.9. Speaking of your comment below

so I presume this is a mistake and you meant to say pH 5.75 at lights on.

No it was not a mistake on my part it is definitely 6.75 at lights on and the PH Controller has just been calibrated with PH 4 and PH 7 solution so it should be pretty accurate.

The UV arrives next week so as things are I am going to try it anyway and post here for all to find out what happens.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
Too much media in the filter. Way too much. Flow will suffer.
Cheers,

Back on page 4 of my 'Full Monty' Journal Clive posted the above when he saw how much filter media was going in to the filters.

I am beginning to think he was right after all! So next week I will be reducing it by half and adding pure Siporax to the filters instead of that horrible plastic stuff that came with the new filter.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
If it's this Sera salt according to the Tip on that page it adds no KH. So if KH is reading and your not adding any then the test is being fooled by something else in the water unless of course the carbonates are coming from something else in the tank. Regardless, with this low a KH injected co2 slips in and out like a ghost and you need to keep the injection rate quite high to counteract your off-gassing rate. If your aim is 30ppm of co2 in the tank you are going to have to crank up the gas to make the pH drop at least 1.2 points.

:)
 
drop at least 1.2 points.
even lower i guess, i think you may need a drop of over 2 full points, maybe even more. The 1 point drop is at medium hardness app 9 KH ( don't worrie about the fish, they won't mind the drop)
 
If it's this Sera salt according to the Tip on that page it adds no KH. So if KH is reading and your not adding any then the test is being fooled by something else in the water unless of course the carbonates are coming from something else in the tank. Regardless, with this low a KH injected co2 slips in and out like a ghost and you need to keep the injection rate quite high to counteract your off-gassing rate. If your aim is 30ppm of co2 in the tank you are going to have to crank up the gas to make the pH drop at least 1.2 points.

:)

Yes it is that Sera Mineral Salt exactly. Maybe the mountain rock is buffering it slightly. When I was up at Steve Punchards place in Clitheroe I noticed he had a large tub of some white powder on a shelf. I asked him what it was and he told me it was pure Bicarbonate of Soda which he uses to buffer the GH/KH. There are good and bad reasons for using Bicarbonate of Soda, good it buffers the GH/KH, bad is it increases the TDS and ups the Redox, or at least that's what I think from reading on he net. Any views?

I have had the PH Controller on for just over 48 hours now. I have set the controller to turn the Co2 on when the PH goes above 6.48 which at the moment seems to be about right. Last night I noticed the Co2 was on but not much coming out through the sparay bar, I had a leak in the connector on my bubble counter. Fixed it temporarily, now looking at a new bubble counter and seen these for £8.99.

BCA00201_large.jpg


BCA00101_1_large.jpg



http://www.co2art.co.uk/collections/bubble-counters

Anyone got these or recommend something different?

Cheers,

Steve.
 
even lower i guess, i think you may need a drop of over 2 full points, maybe even more. The 1 point drop is at medium hardness app 9 KH ( don't worrie about the fish, they won't mind the drop)

Hi Edvet,

I am slightly confused, when you say a drop of over two full points, I am taking that as a drop for example of from PH 7.0 down to under PH 5.0. Have I understood that right?

I have just changed the fluids in both drop checkers last night using 3 drops of the JBL Co2 reagent and 4dkh water and guess what? The colours are dark green, not quite blue but very dark green, and that is with the Dupla PH digital reading showing 6.48. What does that tell you?

Cheers,

Steve.
 
I personaly h8te DC's. I would look at a pH profile and how the fish react. If the KH is indeed that low a small amount of CO2 wil give a decent pH drop, hence you'll need a big drop to make sure there is plenty CO2, the less KH the bigger the drop you need to have plenty CO2. Don't worrie about the pH drop being detrimental to your fish, it won't ( "weak acid" reactions don't harm the fish). I
 
I personally don't use or like dropcheckers. I prefer a pH profile to see what the CO2 is doing. At these low KH values you will indeed need a large drop as indication you have plenty CO2 (a low KH value won't buffer the acids that well and will show a pH drop quite fast, to have plenty CO2 available you will notice a big pH drop. Don't worrie about the fish though as it is a "weak acid"reaction, it won't harm them.
Should you still be afraid of the pH and don't want such a drop, you can alwyas use less CO2, but you will need to adjust (lower) the amount of light.
With a pH profile you start measuring when the CO2 is of ( and what you will measure depends on the balance between the acids and base's) so you might have a starting pH of 6,5 already, still you would need to drop it full 2 points to have plenty CO2 available.
I would just keep an eye on the breathing of the fish
 
This is what the injection profile for 0dKH water looks like for an apple green drop checker (yellow DC needs more co2).
Take the reading from the readout of the UP on the right as the Weipro on the left is sensitive to change in low TDS and rubber bands a bit, the two controllers still correlate the same pH drop when stabilised.



As you can see it drops a full pH point in 20 minutes but then gets ever progressively harder to squeeze more co2 in to drop the pH all the way to a 1.3 total drop from the starting point. At the end of the injection period it takes my tank a full 6+ hours to degass the built up co2 using aeration via an Airstone, my tank acts like a closed bottle without it so it's on 24/7. If you have efficient enough surface flow your co2 will off gas quicker so the injection needs to be increased to counteract this. The co2 coming into my tank is injected via an inline through a 20" reactor vessel at the end of the main filter loop so when it reaches the tank the water is crystal clear and has no discernible free co2 bubbles, before I installed the reactor the inline atomised bubbles would get caught in the bell of the drop checker as they drifted past in my 10x turnover flow thus skewing the DC reading considerably.

:)
 
before I installed the reactor the inline atomised bubbles would get caught in the bell of the drop checker as they drifted past in my 10x turnover flow thus skewing the DC reading considerably.

Just read your sweeet journal :) but no pics of this reactor you speak about. Could you show us how you have it set up?

P
 
Fixed it temporarily, now looking at a new bubble counter and seen these for £8.99.

BCA00201_large.jpg


BCA00101_1_large.jpg



http://www.co2art.co.uk/collections/bubble-counters

Anyone got these or recommend something different?

Cheers,

Steve.[
Yes I use one, in fact I use a modified one! I enlarged the internal nipple by drilling it out a bit. The result was dramatic ... my massive bubble count went down by about half :)
 
All crammed in!

13830148853_cf8ad448f9_h.jpg

TankOut-(ø22x1.5m)-Eheim250T-(ø22x1m)-Helix9wUV-(ø22x1m)-InlineCo2-(ø22x2m coiled)-DTap-(ø22)-Reactor-(ø22)-DTap-(ø13x1.5m)-TankIn

13903132322_16f1cf3da6_b.jpg

That's what it looks like on its own, one of the elbows was changed after that construction because I over tightened it to stop it leaking and cracked the plastic. The joints now have ø1" vacuum cleaner roller brush rubber rings as o-rings to seal them (perfect fit). The pumps rated for 950L/hr, I get nearly half that once it's gone through that lot. Tank volume is 28L.

:)
 
Hi all,
There are good and bad reasons for using Bicarbonate of Soda, good it buffers the GH/KH, bad is it increases the TDS and ups the Redox, or at least that's what I think from reading on he net. Any views?.
It will add dKH, but not dGH (that is a measure of multivalent cations), and all salts will raise TDS. Usually more basic solutions will have a higher REDOX, but it isn't entirely straight forward. In a planted tank potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3) would be better for the plants.

If you want to make your own re-mineralising salt you can just use potassium bicarbonate (KHCO3), "Epsom Salts" (MgSO4.7H2O) and calcium sulphate (CaSO4.2H2O) (or calcium chloride (CaCl)), you don't need to add any sodium (Na), and all the chemicals are available cheaply.

If you want to know how much you need of each compound you can use the calculator at <"James' Planted Tank">.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi all,
I'm sure "X3nith" is right, and that a base has been added to your tap water by your water company to raise the pH, the usual one added is sodium hydroxide (NaOH), which combines being a strong alkaline with cheapness. They will also add some orthophosphates (PO4--) to ensure that any heavy metal ions that make it into solution are precipitated out.

In soft water I tend to ignore pH, because as you get towards pure H2O it becomes a less and less meaningful measurement. This is one of the problems when people extrapolate their (entirely valid) experiences from highly buffered systems like Marine or Lake Tanganyika to soft water systems. In heavily buffered systems you need large changes in water chemistry to effect pH, whilst in soft water any change in water chemistry will effect pH. In the case of CO2 addition you haven't changed the alkalinity of the system, you've just driven the CO2~HCO3 equilibrium towards CO2, lowering the pH. When you stop adding CO2 (H2CO3) the pH will rise.

I'd be surprised if the UV filter makes any difference to the algae, but I would expect the algae to lessen over time without any other intervention.

cheers Darrel
 
REDSTEVEO looking at your plant pictures carefully again, the algae is generally coming from poor health or dying plants. New shoots and leaves are fine.

I have had this type of brown algae & blackl on lower leaves (Glosso in my case) of my plants, in my case poor CO2 distribution. Upping CO2 until drop checker is almost yellow and putting in a 3000l/hr power head stopped the new growth getting algae. Had to trim away the lower bits of plants as the algae doesn't go away by itself.
 
REDSTEVEO looking at your plant pictures carefully again, the algae is generally coming from poor health or dying plants. New shoots and leaves are fine.
Hi Ian,

That is the conundrum I am faced with, its like catch 22, the algae is coming from poor health or dying plants and it is the algae that is causing the plants to suffer from poor health causing them to die. Its like a viscious circle. The plants went in brand new and healthy, obviously there have been changes to the bio mass caused by the fish that have been added since, but generally everything else to do with ferts, water changes, lighting, flow, Co2 input has been done by the book.

I am increasing the Co2 gradually and at the moment the tank has been 'Blacked Out' for one day. I will need to remove the Black out tomorrow to fit the new UV Filter, this has got 500 litres per hour output which should increase the flow around the tank and move the Co2 with it.

Steve.
 
As you can see it drops a full pH point in 20 minutes but then gets ever progressively harder to squeeze more co2 in to drop the pH all the way to a 1.3 total drop from the starting point. At the end of the injection period it takes my tank a full 6+ hours to degass the built up co2 using aeration via an Airstone, my tank acts like a closed bottle without it so it's on 24/7. If you have efficient enough surface flow your co2 will off gas quicker so the injection needs to be increased to counteract this. The co2 coming into my tank is injected via an inline through a 20" reactor vessel at the end of the main filter loop so when it reaches the tank the water is crystal clear and has no discernible free co2 bubbles, before I installed the reactor the inline atomised bubbles would get caught in the bell of the drop checker as they drifted past in my 10x turnover flow thus skewing the DC reading considerably.

Hi X3NiTH a drop to PH 5.60 is lower than I have ever had my PH are your fish wearing some kind of protective suit against acid burn and oxygen masks?:)

The kit on display you have there looks pretty impressive but I am not entirely sure what it all is:wideyed: That thing in the second picture is as big as your cabinet:eek::geek:

The pumps rated for 950L/hr, I get nearly half that once it's gone through that lot. Tank volume is 28L.

Tank volume is only 28 litres but the pump is kicking 950 litres per hour through the system so even at half that it is 475 lph which is 16 times the volume of your tank being cycled in an hour! Have the fish got crash helmets as well:)

Cheers,

Steve.
 
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