Search results for query: *

These days I run an air pump and stone overnight on a timer, switching off at the same time as the CO₂ starts, a couple of hours before lights on. I think my ember tetras are more active and less timid than they were prior to using aeration.

That’s not how I define or understand “high tech”. To my mind, high tech is when you start turbo-charging your plant growth with CO₂ or liquid carbon, high doses of fertiliser, and higher light. I think it’s wise to start low-tech because the balance is less critical and things go wrong more...

Something to consider is that the regeneration instructions were written with the US market in mind, where household bleach is much stronger. I therefore use supermarket thin bleach undiluted. Also, keep in mind that bleach loses its effectiveness over a few months, so it’s worth buying fresh...

I’ve never noticed any evidence of them jumping out.

About a month ago I set up a small bowl, about 3 to 4 litres, with some Tropica soil mixed with grit, some dwarf hairgrass and some mini in-vitro hairgrass. I put an IKEA desk lamp over it on a timer for 8 hours a day. I filled it with water from my 20 litre nano tank, which houses ember tetras...

There are three levels of dosage for TNC Complete: ”Standard” dose for low-tech tanks: 1ml per 10 litres, once a week. ”Triple” dose recommended by the manufacturer as an approximation of EI: 1ml per 10 litres, 3 times a week. This actually gives a slightly lean version of EI. “Double-triple”...

Yup. I fell for that one as well.

I keep neo shrimps with embers, no problem. The embers never pay any attention, even with tiny babies.

Welcome! I agree with noodlesuk - you want roughly three to four times as many plants as you’ve currently got! 🙂

Bear in mind that K₂CO₃ will also increase your KH, and hence also pH. Depending on the fauna in your tank, you may need to proceed slowly. You are currently dosing the “triple” dose of TNC Complete, as recommended by the manufacturer as an approximation of EI. However, that dose is fairly...

I think you’re going in the wrong direction with your fertiliser dosage. According to the instructions for your chosen fertiliser, for a tank with moderate to high lighting and CO₂ injection you should be dosing about 2 ml per day. You started at 1 ml per day and have reduced to half that...

I have three C. pygmaeus in my heavily-planted 25 litre tank. Initially they were very nervous and I was worried that the group was too small, but they settled after a few days and seem happy now. Even so, they always react when I approach the tank, swimming away initially but returning after a...

Cylinder pressure is normally around 6 MPa, which is between 800 to 900 psi. So at 500 psi your cylinder is actually nearly empty. The very high pressure means that normally there’s a substantial amount of liquid CO₂ in the cylinder, with a volume of gaseous CO₂ as well. As you gradually...

Only if a step ladder is involved, surely? A step ladder is always involved. And don’t call me Shirley.

What are we looking at in the picture?

If you want an HC carpet, you need injected CO₂. You will also need a decent amount of light, but the CO₂ is the key, along with good water flow and distribution. If you go for a minimalist look like in your picture, then distributing CO₂ to the carpet plants is not too difficult because you...

Looks to me like you have the early onset of Black Brush Algae (BBA). This type of algae prompts a huge debate as to its causes, but there are two recurring themes: too much organic waste, and low (or fluctuating) CO₂. In your pictures there seems to be a lot of solid organic matter (“mulm”)...

The in-vitro C. wendtii “green” that I planted in my nano tank didn’t melt, but they did take an eternity to get going. The tank was set up about 6 months ago, but it’s really only in the last 2-3 months that the crypts have started growing. For months they just sat there with minute leaves...

The smell is normal. Don’t try and get rid of it by drying the Purigen out - you’ll just ruin the Purigen, and it isn’t cheap stuff!

Yep, it does have an “off fish” smell.

I run a Hydor 200W external on my 25 litre nano tank, because I wanted to keep all equipment out of the tank as far as possible. That wattage is obviously far too much for the size of tank, so I drive the heater from an STC-1000 temperature controller that I’ve mounted in a plastic box. If...

Which wattage of Fluval Plant 3 do you have? From a quick Google it seems to be available in three different wattages. Also it‘s important for us to know how long it’s on for each day. What dosage of TNC Complete are you using, and how often? If your nitrate level is very low, it could be that...

I have DHG in my nano tank, which has high light and lots of CO₂ with good flow over the carpet plants (I also have HC Cuba). For me the DHG has established a thick carpet quite quickly, and I have to prevent it spreading further laterally. It’s actually a little bit invasive! It can however...

I would say that the optimum time is whenever you’re least likely to forget! As it happens, I tend to dose in the mornings as well.

One of my female blue velvets is hiding in the vegetation and appears to be hatching her eggs...

I am doubtful about its effects against algae. But there is one definite benefit: in my nano tank, I have it placed underneath my spray bar, so the device fills the whole tank with tiny bubbles and allows me to visually check the flow of water around the tank. I can actually see the water...

Nice looking tank - I love the wood! Glosso needs decent light and very good CO₂ to make it grow compactly. On the plus side, at least it’s growing and looking healthy, albeit not as tight to the substrate as you would like. Your light strikes me as pretty good, although 5 hours is a very...

I‘m always amused by claims of “no chemicals”. What do you think water is? It’s a chemical! Oxygen? It’s a chemical! How about any of the proteins that make up your body? Chemicals!

Well, I’ve been dosing 10ppm per week of NO₃ and 2ppm per week of PO₄ for some weeks now, which is the same 5:1 ratio that gave me tiny amounts of BGA previously. The result? No BGA. So the result is a bit inconclusive. I can’t say this experiment supports the idea that BGA is caused by the NO₃...

I have been dosing my tank daily with 3% H₂O₂ for the last few weeks, because I suspected some of my blue velvet shrimps were showing signs of chitinolytic shell disease. In fact I had one female whose carapace went almost entirely brown, but she is now looking miles better (and has been...

24 ounces is 680g, which is somewhat larger than the 450g of a Sodastream cylinder. If that‘s running out in 2 weeks of moderate usage, there’s definitely a leak. And I agree that the leak must be upstream (before) the bubble counter. I’d be checking the regulator, all tube connections, and...

Ah, I think I found a new favourite clue: Evergreen shrub that’s not hardy! (6)

I remember when Maidenhead Aquatics was just a single shop near the centre of Maidenhead. I’m probably going back to some time in the eighties. They were nothing short of a revelation; in those days, most aquatic shops were pretty dire, and MA were the first shop to have a pretty high-tech...

Yes, I made the mistake of using slightly too much superglue when attaching Anubias roots to some wood, and it does indeed go white. But it has faded away now, about six months on.

Yep, I have embers with blue velvets. The embers ignore the shrimps, and I haven't seen them go for babies either.

Not really true. Fuses in plugs are still very much relevant. The RCD in the consumer unit will protect against earth leakage or various other faults. But it won’t prevent an individual appliance pulling more current than its cable can cope with (or indeed more current than it‘s sensible for...

Holy cow! The pictures showing an earth pin pushed into the live of those adapters is the stuff of nightmares! Isn’t it a good job that any house with reasonably recent wiring will have an RCD or RCBOs in the consumer unit! Mind you, whilst replacing some broken light fittings in my late...

Remember that the EI recommended levels are dosages, not target values for the water column. The plants should be sucking up a good proportion of the dosage that you add, so the water column probably won’t reach 3 ppm. And normal practice is to add the dosage in three chunks throughout the week...

Yay! Babies! It‘s a great feeling getting your first shrimplets, isn’t it? You‘ll be astonished how fast they grow. Give it two weeks and you’ll be struggling to differentiate between the “babies” and the adults. They also become a lot more visible as they grow - they hide less, as if they’re...

I know you said “no fauna”, and for such a small bowl that’s a wise decision. But you could get away with some Asellus aquaticus, which you could collect from ponds or streams nearby. They’re very hardy and kinda cool.

My rainwater passes over roofing tiles (mostly slate), and is collected from a diverter in the gutter down pipe. It also comes from an area of flat roof. Depending on how rigorous I’ve been at keeping the gutters clear, it may have passed through some composting leaf litter on its way down. The...

Or it could be because my rainwater is absolutely fine... Ammonia: 0 Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 0 pH: 7 KH: ≤ 1 GH: ≤ 1 I wouldn’t recommend using any source of water without a decent conditioner, and Prime is the best in my opinion. The only reason I do a full-tank dose with water changes is because...

I’ve been using freezer blocks, as well as frozen bottles, either floated directly in the tank or placed into the bucket of water that my canister filter is sitting in. Floating directly in the tank gives a much more rapid response, of course, which is something to bear in mind - for my small 25...

I’ve used rainwater collected via a diverter for donkey’s years, and never had any water quality issues. There are daphnia living in my water butt, so I’m confident of its quality. The perceived risk of rainwater is no greater than with tapwater. You never know whether the supplier has added a...

30°C is going to be uncomfortable for a lot of fish, especially danios. As temperature rises, fish become more active and their oxygen demand increases. At the same time, the solubility of oxygen in warmer water decreases, so oxygen availability decreases. Different species of fish can...

Would you consider using rainwater? I don’t know what is available in Poland, but in this country you can buy a “diverter” kit that you insert into one of the guttering downpipes of your house, and it diverts the rainwater into a water butt (a large plastic tank). Rain water is very pure -...

I’ve currently got my filter canister sitting in a bucket of iced water. Over the last hour or so the temperature of my 25 litre nano tank has come down from 29.1°C to 27.4°C, and there’s still plenty of ice in the bucket. Once the bucket of ice has stopped cooling the tank, I have a few small...

I think he means “Gaaaah!!!”

And that’s assuming you replace the FE each time. You should be able to get it refilled for a lot less. I’m keeping a full Sodastream cylinder (and an adapter to make it fit), so when the time comes to refill my FE I can swap to the Sodastream cylinder and get the FE refilled at my leisure -...

My Pygmy cories school with my ember tetras!

Here’s a picture of my gauges - they’re not as colourful as yours! Cylinder pressure is on the left, 5-and a-bit megapascals on the outer scale. (Edit: Actually, now I look more closely, mine is more like 6, so similar to yours.) Output pressure is on the right, around 40 psi on the inner...

For future reference, the cylinder pressure should stay rock steady at the same value it started at. It doesn’t gradually decrease as you use the CO₂ because most of the CO₂ is liquid inside the cylinder and CO₂ gas will constantly evolve from that body of liquid to maintain the pressure of gas...

Your bubble counter is going mental simply because the needle valve is fully open. Once you’ve squeezed the handles, close the needle valve fully, and then you can switch the solenoid off. Then the pressures should stabilise. The system will be fully pressurised, but there should be no CO₂...

On a lot of extinguishers there’s a second hole that comes into alignment when the handles are squeezed together, and it looks like yours is like that. So you don’t need to gaffer tape the handles together - just re-insert the safety pin through the holes and it will hold the handles together...

Sweet Knowle Aquatics normally have them - six for £14.75. Out of stock at the moment, but might be worth giving a ring to see when they’ll be in and what price they could offer for the number you want.

Better hope not to get the “three males” option then! To guarantee a breeding colony I’d want more than three.

Bear in mind that MTS are not hermaphrodite; they are separate male and female. So if the three you’ve obtained were taken at random from a large 50:50 population, there‘s a 25% risk that you’ve added 3 males or 3 females (12.5% risk of all male, 12.5% risk of all female).

Yes, at first I did replant the tops, but the clump has become so dense it’s no longer possible. Next time I trim, should I pull up and bin the bottoms?

I grow a clump of Rotala wallichii in my 25 litre nano tank. It grows quite well, and has a nice pink colour on new growth. I’m experimenting with leaner NO₃ in my fert mix to see if I can get it to go pinker still, but I’m basically fairly happy with it. But it only looks its best for a few...

Right, I now have my PO₄ test kit, and I’ve done a test. I should highlight a couple of caveats. Firstly, I’ve only been dosing my current fert mixture (10 ppm/week NO₃ and 2.0 ppm/week PO₄) for a few days. Secondly, I am currently doing daily 25% water changes because one of my ember tetras...

I also started with TNC Complete, and it is a good product. But, as Zeus points out it is an expensive way of doing things. In order to get to the top-end of EI dosing you have to use the “double-triple” dose as recommended by Aquarium Gardens, and this would get very expensive on anything...

The tiny pockets of BGA that I got were all within an inch of the surface, directly in the spray bar outflow and directly underneath the area of most vigorous surface agitation!

On the subject of rainwater, I wouldn’t use it on its own - I’d mix it with tap water. In fact, that’s precisely what I do! Rainwater might be very, very low on KH and GH, so on its own it wouldn’t be suitable for your Amano shrimps, which need some calcium in the water for their skins. Very...

I completely agree that a nano tank looks best as a species tank with a shoal of just one type. Chilli rasboras are stunning, and ember tetras are pretty good too. I reckon ten or a dozen of either would be a good level. I think you could keep three ottos if you target them with appropriate...

I have ordered the PO₄ test kit you suggested, @jaypeecee . So I should shortly know what my water column PO₄ level is. NO₃ is 20ppm or maybe somewhat less; that’s the best accuracy I have.

I don't believe it's a case of hitting an exact magic ratio; rather I think it's a case of avoiding certain ranges of very nitrate-lean ratios. I have only experienced tiny amounts of BGA when I changed my ratio by quite a long way, so I suspect the allowable "BGA-free" range of ratios is quite...

I’m not necessarily chasing the Redfield ratio; I’m just investigating what appears to me to be a link between Cyanobacteria and the NO₃ / PO₄ ratio in my fertiliser mix. And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s expressed as N / P or as NO₃ / PO₄ in my view. If there is a magic N : P ratio...

Interesting! I'm in the process of experimenting with precisely this: the ratio of NO₃ and PO₄ in my fert dosage. I've constructed a table below that summarises the history of the ratios I've been trying. You can see below that the one time so far that I’ve allowed the ratio to go down to 5:1...

Indeed. As I understand it, both dietary and water-column calcium are more-or-less equally important. I also believe some magnesium is required too, in lesser amounts. So in addition to making sure the water GH is in the right range (shrimp seem to have a “Goldilocks” relationship with calcium...

Does your wife go out at particular times of the day/week? You might be able to do larger water changes if you time them to, er, particular times of the day/week. Just sayin’...

A GH of 3° strikes me as a bit on the low side. I keep mine at about 7°.

Yep, I also use pressurised CO₂ and a daily dose of Seachem Excel, in my case for a 25 litre nano tank.

Does the green get lighter during the first couple of hours of light? Ideally you want to reach a light green within the first couple of hours of light, remaining light green throughout the rest of the photoperiod.

No, if you were to dissolve some CO₂ in water and then observe with a powerful enough microscope, you wouldn’t see any bubbles. If it were possible to zoom in further, you’d eventually see CO₂ molecules roaming the spaces between the H₂O molecules. There would be some electrostatic interaction...

I could do, but actually I think curiosity will get the better of me and my next move will be to lower the nitrate to 10 ppm/week while leaving the phosphate at 2 ppm/week. This would give a NO₃/PO₄ ratio of 5:1, which is the same ratio that gave me small pockets of Cyanobacteria (at 15 ppm/week...

I use API 5-in-1 strips for most purposes (although I use the JBL titration tests for KH and GH when I want more accurate results). The API strips only give a crude measurement of NO₃ and don’t give PO₄. So my “results” are based purely on the ppm/week that I’m adding to the tank. However, I...

I just thought I’d share the results of my experimentation with nutrient ratios in relation to cyanobacteria. I believe the ratio of NO₃ and PO₄ may be important. To start with, I was dosing TNC Complete at the “double-triple” dose as recommended by Aquarium Gardens. Roughly speaking this...

My favourite online source for fish is Sweet Knowle Aquatics. Having visited a couple of times, their quality is extremely good, and they package fish very well indeed.

Ah yes, in the past I too have cycled a tank using an “organic source of ammonia”. It works surprisingly well. The tricky part is only letting out the small amount required. I’m married now, so I’m quite sure I’d be unable to get away with such behaviour nowadays.

That’s this year’s new growth.

Good point! I use a stock solution of 44 g/l and use it to tweak my GH at water changes. 1ml per litre of this raises GH by 1°. Happily this also gives me a reasonable Mg level. I bought a 10kg tub off eBay. By my reckoning this will last me about 175 years. (But I also use it to prevent dark...

TNC Complete contains 1.5% Nitrogen, 0.2% Phosphorus, and 5% Potassium. Therefore in your 35ml per week you are adding: 0.525g Nitrogen, which is 2.325g nitrate, i.e. 19ppm per week 0.07g Phosphorus, which is 0.2g phosphate, i.e. 1.7ppm per week 1.75g Potassium, i.e. 14ppm per week. If you’re...

It sounds like the CO₂ issue is largely resolved, but for future reference it’s always a good idea to turn your CO₂ off completely prior to adding new fish and leave it off for the rest of the day. And of course you’ll be keeping your lights low as well. Your new fish will probably acclimatise...

Yes, TNC Complete is a sensible choice for a small tank. The standard low-tech dose is 1ml per 10 litres, once per week. TNC advise that you can triple this dose to give an approximation of EI, but to be honest it’s still a little bit on the lean side. Aquarium Gardens recommend doubling this...

I recently bought 10 blue velvet shrimps from an eBay seller called “niceshrimps”, and they came via RM Special Delivery 1pm, very well packaged and all healthy. And excellent colouration too.

I use the API 5-in-1 test strips for NO₂ and NO₃ and separately the API Ammonia test strips. I personally don’t get along with liquid tests that require you to compare colours with a chart, because in my experience you get completely different shades of colour depending on whether you hold the...

If you have strong light and good CO₂ injection, you could try Rotala wallichii if you want something coppery/pinky coloured. It has a very fine, feathery appearance so it works very well in the scale of a nano tank, and you can keep it trimmed to whatever height you want.

For my 25-litre tank, I just do a full tank dose of Prime with every 50% water change. So I add 1 ml using a syringe. I‘ve never had any false positives for NH₃ NO₂ etc.

Try taking a look at Sweet Knowle Aquatics. I’ve ordered from them a number of times with good results. And I’ve recently bought some Blue Velvet shrimps from an eBay seller called “niceshrimps”, and they are, er, nice shrimps!

So the stem receiving less light doesn’t have the problem? To my mind that supports Clive’s assertion that it’s insufficient CO₂ - for the amount of light. If you can’t increase CO₂ then the only thing you can do is reduce CO₂ demand, by reducing your light intensity. That‘s what I’d be trying.

I didn’t know that! Another food that people often feed hedgehogs that is really bad for them is mealworms. They love them, but they’re bad because of the high phosphorus content that causes calcium depletion in their bones, and they can end up badly crippled. Peanuts and sunflower hearts are...

Apparently slugs make up only a very small part of their diet. They mainly eat beetles.

Yes, it automatically switches from colour in the daytime, and uses its array of IR LEDs to provide nighttime illumination. It has three PIR sensors: two facing 45° to the sides, and one pointing straight forward.

It’s a Campark T80. I’m very pleased with it - quite easy to use, and it gives really good video.

My wife and I have lived in this house for 10 years, and despite being blessed with a decent size garden we have always believed that we didn’t have hedgehogs. It was back in January that we realised that was wrong. One of our cats suddenly stared intently out of the back window, and on...

My 25 litre nano runs with an Eheim Classic 150.

The principal reason is that I wanted as little equipment inside the tank as possible. It’s harder to hide things in a very small tank. So the reason is purely aesthetic. I totally agree - I’m surprised manufacturers haven’t realised that external equipment is even more relevant to nano tanks...

That’s what I did originally, but the Hydor’s thermostat is so sensitive that it was switching every minute or two. On a larger tank with more thermal mass it wouldn’t be a problem.

I use a 200W Hydor external heater for my 25 litre nano tank. Obviously that wattage is way too big, and would boil the tank rapidly if it ever stuck on, so I drive it using an STC-1000 temperature controller so that there are two thermostats regulating the temperature. Originally I had the...

I would argue that in science there are no silly questions! In fact, the most important thing a scientist can say is “I don’t know”, because it’s only when you accept that you don’t know something that you can then investigate the answer with a truly neutral and open mind. And I believe that is...