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  1. Wookii

    CO2 not off gassing overnight?

    I still see no point in attempting to off-gas CO2 at the end of the photo period. All CO2 injected tanks should have decent surface agitation anyway, and that alone will off-gas more CO2 from photo period levels, than plants might release during the night. You'll rarely be able to off-gas all...
  2. Wookii

    10l Bloody Mary Nano

    Oh I like the look of that little light! How are you finding it?
  3. Wookii

    Is there a way to block a person from following me?

    See, now I'm just super intrigued!!
  4. Wookii

    nannostomus anduzei

    Surprising, as Wildwoods package fish better than any other seller I've used - biy poly box, lots of insulation, heat pads etc. They also use APC, which should mean that livestock is kept in higher temperatures than the normal packages. I'd be surprised if they were exposed to minus temperatures...
  5. Wookii

    BBC News

    Nothing to do with Walter White and Meth then? 🤷‍♂️🤯
  6. Wookii

    Fluval Bio CO2 Pro system.

    I'm not sure - I think the literature suggests it might be yeast, but yeast will happily chomp through sugar and produce CO2 under pressure - pressure fermentation is a specific brewing technique.
  7. Wookii

    Fluval Bio CO2 Pro system.

    That not the same thing - the system in the OP is a pressure system - the cost comes from the pressure capable stainless steel container - though you could do it a lot cheaper using a stainless steel brewing keg that can also handle a lot more pressure and has a built in PRV.
  8. Wookii

    Experienced fish keepers: What are you feeding your fish?

    Ideal starting size, the bigger the better - the two tubs up front in my pic above are 84L, the one at the rear is a 165L plasters bath. I started with the lid on for about six months when I set up the first two tubs with a view to reducing evaporation and reducing temperature swings at night...
  9. Wookii

    Experienced fish keepers: What are you feeding your fish?

    Now's the time to get a tub or two set up in your garden - a big shallow plastic tub works great for daphnia. Add a few hand fulls of oak leaves and some ferts, leave it for a couple of weeks, and then seed it with a bag of daphnia from your LFS. You can culture green water too if you want to...
  10. Wookii

    Best Filter Media

    Most likely because the majority of the ammonia processing is being conducted by the substrate and plants (assuming its a planted tank). Our filters take something of a back seat role in the nitrogen cycle on planted tanks. At the end the day though, a well seeded filter media should never look...
  11. Wookii

    Best Filter Media

    Any biological media well populated by microbial mulm will (and should) go brown. The ceramic media in the lower picture has a good (and what I would consider correct) layer of microbial film over it. The media in the upper image is still clean, and has next to no microbial film, suggesting very...
  12. Wookii

    Experienced fish keepers: What are you feeding your fish?

    I'm not sure how live food could possibly cause fish to become ill, outside of introducing bugs caught from a wild pond or lake (even then it seems unlikely). Certainly for daphnia grown in buckets in your garden, or Grindal worms grown in tubs in your house, I don't believe there to be any risk...
  13. Wookii

    Dart Frog Terrarium Build

    The last one's overrated . . they're best just left to go feral - I've given up trying to domesticate mine!
  14. Wookii

    Redoing substrate... sand on top of gravel

    Yep, I linked to it in my previous post ;)
  15. Wookii

    Redoing substrate... sand on top of gravel

    Remanso . . . Some pics in my journal, but the iPhone camera doesn't do a good job of capturing the colour of it as the RGB lights mess with the camera sensor.
  16. Wookii

    Paternal mouthbrooding in the chocolate gourami Sphaerichthys osphromenoides (Osphronemidae)

    I've got no idea when sex mine are, they all look completely different from one another now they're fully grown! So everything is opposite to what we think - so it is the females that colour up with red etc, not the males, and it is the males with the enlarged throat and more muted colours, not...
  17. Wookii

    Redoing substrate... sand on top of gravel

    Hugo Kamishi Natural Sand | Hugo Kamishi
  18. Wookii

    Journal JUNGLE PUDDLE: Dooa Mizukusa wall

    Is the drip wall reservoir at the top deep enough to take a small heater laying down Ady?
  19. Wookii

    Redoing substrate... sand on top of gravel

    It shouldn't be an issue, my Hugo Kamishi sand is a similar size, and my plants have no problem rooting in it. I have used silver sand in the past which is 0.15-0.25mm grain size, and that was a bit small to be honest, and I did have some black stinky patches in the deeper substrate when I broke...
  20. Wookii

    Redoing substrate... sand on top of gravel

    A third vote for that @MichaelJ - all your gravel will migrate up to the top of the sand eventually unless you take measures to keep it in place, a layer of fine plastic mesh over the top before adding the sand should do the trick, or bagging the gravel up as others have suggested (though I...
  21. Wookii

    RGB B A

    I find when it colour starts to go light and blue like that its on its way out - your shrimp will keep pecking at dead and dying bits until its all gone - take a fair while though!
  22. Wookii

    Scarlet badis female?

    Hard to tell - I have some females, and they are notably plumper in body shape than the males that are leaner but deeper bodied, also the females dorsal fin doesn't seem as prominent. Yours looks like a small male that hasn't coloured up yet, to me. That said, I'm far from an expert and could...
  23. Wookii

    Help selecting background plants . . .

    Lol I can barely rememebr what I did last week, not to mention 4 years ago 😂 I memory serves though, I tried a few different stem plants, but eventually settled on a combination of Rotala Orange juice, and Limnophila Aromatica Mini. Both grew very well for me, but the Aromatica Mini was the...
  24. Wookii

    Is Tom Barr's Approach Still The Go To Approach For Low Tech?

    Perhaps its "Fake News"?? Tin Tin is technically over 90 years old, and these two have never been seen in the same room . . .
  25. Wookii

    Is Tom Barr's Approach Still The Go To Approach For Low Tech?

    . . . . the truth is out there . . .
  26. Wookii

    Nannostomus Trifasciatus - General Info

    It perhaps depends on the environment they're kept in too. I've only kept Marginatus, and in my large tank with lots of broken lines of sight, I've not seen any major aggression amongst my group of 20 odd fish - maybe just the odd bit of posturing. Quite the opposite on the whole, they quite...
  27. Wookii

    Experience with Blau Aquaristic tanks?

    Perhaps they've changed recently, but I've had three of their opti-white tanks in the past, and they've been excellent value for money - decent quality silicone work on visible panes, and no issues for me!
  28. Wookii

    Fish safety - doing a partial rescape with aquasoil

    +1 to this - surprised at the other recommendations above to just dump the soil in. Tropica soil leaches ammonia on first use. I certainly wouldn't add it fresh to a stocked tank. Best bet would be to soak it in a bucket for a week or two, changing the water in the bucket periodically, before...
  29. Wookii

    Reverse Osmosis Usage Check

    . . . and I think you’ve “edited” the quote . . . I think you should quote it verbatim . . . 😂
  30. Wookii

    Reverse Osmosis Usage Check

    I was referring to an aquarium though Darrel. If we push the pH in a tank down to 4.5pH with a half decent fish load - especially is a lightly planted biotope tank, do we not risk ammonia build up from due to the low pH affecting the microbial community?
  31. Wookii

    DIY CO2

    Looks like the above system has a PRV on the side of it, so pressure build-up shouldn't be a problem. I also suspect is a citric acid based system, so no yeast. That said, it does seem an awful lot of faff when you can get get a soda stream canister for a similar price.
  32. Wookii

    Reverse Osmosis Usage Check

    Depends on the fish. In blackwater habitats conductivity can drop below 20us (about 13ppm TDS), but that might not be practical in an aquarium as the pH could drop too low for the microbial community. I think about 40-50ppm (60-80us) would probably be the lowest I'd attempt to go, though there'd...
  33. Wookii

    Orinoco Drainage, Flood Pond, Rio Tomo Biotope/Vichada-Colombia

    Great video @Arifhb’s Aquatics - the tanks look awesome. I have always wondered with biotope tanks like this - is there a technique for rapidly achieving the fluffy mulm on the hardscape and substrate, and some plants, that gives the that natural look as though the scape has been in place for...
  34. Wookii

    Algae after vacation ! Need to revive

    In my experience it's unrelated to absolute fert levels per se, and is often triggered by an imbalance (usually a rapid one) in the system that causes a deterioration in plant health. For example I had a load appear in my current tank a few months back. When I investigated further, it turned...
  35. Wookii

    Algae after vacation ! Need to revive

    Its the IFC Calculator, for calculating ferts dosing, created by guys on this forum: https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/ifc-aquarium-fertilizer-calculator.63045/ No, the first table are his dosing targets, The second table is the quantities of various salts (the left hand side of the table...
  36. Wookii

    Tropica soil on top of sand

    Yep, many of the manufactured soils come pre-loaded with fertilizers - usually ammonia based for the nitrogen element - which leaks out fairly substantially in the first week or two of use.
  37. Wookii

    Feeding techniques - Apistogrammas

    They're going to be next on the Apisto's menu then! Do you have a Grindal worm culture on the go? Hands down the easiest and most hassle free way to generate large quantities of live food in my limited experience, plus you can gut load the worms with any good quality foods you prefer.
  38. Wookii

    Tropica soil on top of sand

    The Tropica soil will leach a lot of ammonia, so don't put it in the tank with your Discus in it. Personally I wouldn't bother with the soil, and just add more pre-rinsed sand if you want to increase the substrate depth.
  39. Wookii

    Journal JUNGLE PUDDLE: Dooa Mizukusa wall

    @Ady34 are you finding the drip wall in combination with the mister is providing enough humidity in your (presumably) centrally heated room, or are you having to manually mist the plants regularly too?
  40. Wookii

    Reverse Osmosis Usage Check

    Which is by far the majority of the fish we keep in the hobby.
  41. Wookii

    Moving fish temporarily into much larger uncycled tank

    Have to agree with @castle and @tam , if the existing tank is heavily planted, the existing filter is highly unlikely to be able to cope with running the existing fish load on its own. Sure it should be well populated with the right microorganisms, but their population will be no where near high...
  42. Wookii

    Maq's Substrate Experiment

    That is a real shame if I'm honest. @_Maq_ was a prickly character on occasion for sure, but clearly had a lot to contribute, and it's hard to see what could have been 'ban worthy'?
  43. Wookii

    Chlorine or Chloramine Level + Testing Inline Dechlorinators

    It shouldn't be an issue at typical household flow rates I wouldn't have thought, though you are right in the that slower the pass through, the more effective it'll be. It would be worth checking with the guys at Vyair, their customer support is very good.
  44. Wookii

    Chlorine or Chloramine Level + Testing Inline Dechlorinators

    Yeah, that should be fine, though stage 2 only needs to be a Chlorine filter, with the chloramine in stage 3. However I was meaning just a dual stage filter - so the Carbon Wrap filter in the 1st stage as it is dual purpose; sediment and carbon filter in one, and then just have the Premium...
  45. Wookii

    Chlorine or Chloramine Level + Testing Inline Dechlorinators

    For testing chlorine in product water of my RO system (which then tells me its time to change the carbon filters) I use this Hanna unit: HI-711 Total Chlorine Handheld Colorimeter - Checker HC
  46. Wookii

    Chlorine or Chloramine Level + Testing Inline Dechlorinators

    You just need a decent HMA filter. I would recommend a dual cartridge one either 10" or 20", and have a combination carbon block and sediment filter in the first cartridge, and a chloramine filter in the second. 10" x 2.5" Triple Filter Housing System - Vyair
  47. Wookii

    Twinstar Lighting - The Waterproof G-Line

    Good option - look likes it retro fits into a pre-existing fluorescent tube holder too which will be useful to many folks.
  48. Wookii

    Foam mats yes or no?

    Personally I would yes. You can get a lot of movement in wood, particularly plywood which is prone to distortion with changes in temperature and humidity. I usually attach the mats loosely to the base of the tank with a few small pieces of double sided adhesive tape - it makes it much easier...
  49. Wookii

    Inline diffuser and inline heater position

    I think you are overthinking it. It’s likely it makes no difference which way around you have them, but my approach has always been to have the diffuser as early in the line as possible - right after the filter, to maximise the contact time of the CO2 bubbles.
  50. Wookii

    What books are you reading?

    You must have no problems getting to sleep at night Michael! 😜
  51. Wookii

    Bad experience with Milliput- instantly dead fish!!

    JBL Pro Haru is pretty good, and completely safe. JBL PROHARU UNIVERSAL
  52. Wookii

    What books are you reading?

    Sounds quite sinister! . . . and she doesn't even have a yellow hat on?! . . . weird! 🤷‍♂️
  53. Wookii

    Current build status of my heavy driftwood tank

    Yeah I was really impressed with them too - really fresh and healthy. Mine won't get a great deal of light at the back of the tank also, but hopefully that'll push them to reach for the light a bit!
  54. Wookii

    Current build status of my heavy driftwood tank

    Dammit - thanks very much for the kind offer - would have definitely taken you up on that mate, if not for the fact I got some delivered from Aqua Essentials on Friday! :banghead: I ordered three pots - probably two pots too many given they were decent sized plants, and at least two in each...
  55. Wookii

    Week aqua users

    Yes mate, dropped you a reply just now 👍🏻
  56. Wookii

    Week aqua users

    Sure, drop me a PM 😂
  57. Wookii

    Week aqua users

    Yes mate, still got about 4 left I think
  58. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    Eric, if you are reading, you really should consider joining the forum. You obviously have a wealth of knowledge beyond filtration - and the forum would benefit adding your knowledge and experience to the 'collective'. To answer your points directly, I don't believe water changes have ever been...
  59. Wookii

    Morph confirmation required. BM or RC

    Removal is the only way to maintain continuity of the features you want. Setting up a second small tank for you 'culls' might be worth doing, because they can also produce true Bloody Mary young for adding back into the main tank. That's always an option too - and what I do to be honest. I've...
  60. Wookii

    Morph confirmation required. BM or RC

    True Bloody Mary shrimp differ from standard cherry shrimp in that it is their flesh rather than their exo-skeleton that contains the pigmentation. That being said, Bloody Mary's, like all cherry shrimp as Neocaridina, not a different species, so you can get genetic throw backs. In my Bloody...
  61. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    Interesting! I'll let others provide more detailed analysis on whether the above seems credible. I still maintain though, that is a huge amount of effort to go through , just to avoid draining off a bit of water and adding a bit more fresh water back in! Almost the entirety of that incredibly...
  62. Wookii

    When to add fish!

    I've always stocked at or close to the maximum recommendation for my tanks, depending on layout, as I love fish so much. Not sure how much it counts but I have around 220 fish in my 1500 - they are all small though (all 30mm or less). It sounds a lot of fish, and feeding times are busy for...
  63. Wookii

    Substrate depth

    How clean the sand looks is just a matter of how much is on the surface to be honest, the detritus buried in it is only beneficial. The cleanliness of the surface doesn't change whether you have is 10mm deep or 100mm deep. If you plan to have any shrimp and snail, you'll probably find nothing...
  64. Wookii

    HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

    I've found it to be the case. I cleaned the filter on my low tech (Oase 850) over Christmas for the first time in about a year, and the Hel-X were clean as a whistle. That said, the whole filter was pretty clean considering the duration - thanks I think to using the fine black sponges on the...
  65. Wookii

    Current build status of my heavy driftwood tank

    Have you kept it before? If so, does it stay as a rosette, or put out runners?
  66. Wookii

    Current build status of my heavy driftwood tank

    Thats a nice looking plant - I've not come across that before: Might have to steal that idea from you, as I'm looking for a new background plant for the right side of my tank!!
  67. Wookii

    HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

    I should also add, for a good quality stocking calculator/planner, this is one of the best I've used: https://aqadvisor.com/ Though in all cases, all tanks are different, and need to be considered in context of things such as tank layout vs species selected etc.
  68. Wookii

    HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

    lol that from Oase sounds dubious advice at best! As I mentioned above, there are far too many other variables. For example, my filter is a wet/dry trickle filter, so all filter media is exposed to 21% concentration of atmospheric levels of oxygen - that's about 210,000ppm, vs 8ppm of DO...
  69. Wookii

    HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

    No worries at all. Also worth pointing out that washing the sponge doesn't necessarily negate its ability to provide biological filtration - indeed the opposite can even be true. Areas of sponge clogged with detritus may have lower levels of DO, which will reduce the biological filtration...
  70. Wookii

    Low-Tech Fertilizer Recipe

    Great so see a recipe for low energy tanks @Happi thanks for posting - any reason some of the Solufeed 2:4:1 as used in your high energy recipe, can't be used here with the Coir TEC to simplify things, or does it throw the quantities of certain nutrients too far out? Also, just to get on my...
  71. Wookii

    HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

    Yep, thats why I said: I was just pointing out that foam also provides mechanical filtration where floating media doesn't.
  72. Wookii

    Substrate depth

    As Darrel suggests, it will depend on the type of Cory's you plan to keep. They will often dig down past their eyeballs, so again it depends on the size of the Cory. Probably around 20mm min at the lowest point I'd say. The deeper the better, as the more detritus worms and bugs it will contain...
  73. Wookii

    HELX-13/K1 verse Foam in Canister Filters

    +1 to the above - though both types can act as biological media, they have a very different function. Foam provides effective mechanical filtration but will clog over time, floating plastic media is largely self cleaning for the most part and provide more effective microbial surfaces because of...
  74. Wookii

    Is Tom Barr's Approach Still The Go To Approach For Low Tech?

    And that's fair enough mate (I personally welcome the wider discussion - I'm not specifically a Tom Barr advocate, more I'm playing devils advocate for the most part here) but now at least you can argue directly against the specific points on that specific suggested technique, rather than...
  75. Wookii

    Is Tom Barr's Approach Still The Go To Approach For Low Tech?

    Lol @_Maq_ - that's the whole basis of this threads discussion! So you've basically seen the name "Tom Barr" and made the assumption he has one singular approach. Easily done I guess, but as they say, assumptions are the mother of all . . .
  76. Wookii

    Is Tom Barr's Approach Still The Go To Approach For Low Tech?

    Gotta ask @_Maq_ - have you actually read through the post by Tom Barr on The Barr Report website linked to in the opening post? It doesn't even mention the Estimative Index in reference to running a low tech tank?
  77. Wookii

    Anyone own an ADA glass stand?

    I like the look of them but all that extra glass to clean starts to make me feel a bit queasy! 😅
  78. Wookii

    Cryptocoryne Usteriana

    I imagine you'll be fine with that - my tap is 6dKH, so a fair bit more carbonate content.
  79. Wookii

    Pump with good head?

    OK, so this is your answer: Personally I'd recommend a DC pump so you can adjust the flow, as you'll have no means to adjust it on an AC pump. If you want a specific pump recommendations it might be worth mentioning budget. I have experience with the Ecotech Vectras, and they are excellent...
  80. Wookii

    Pump with good head?

    Fair enough - perhaps I'm misunderstand what you are trying to achieve. When you say: . . . do you mean you want to create a separate filtration loop - as in you want an additional inlet and outlet adding to the tank? If so, the easiest way would just be to add a second cheap canister...
  81. Wookii

    Cryptocoryne Usteriana

    I should probably define here, when I say hard or soft water, I'm (incorrectly) referring exclusively to carbonate hardness/alkalinity/KH - I still maintain a decent level of GH for the accompanying maintenance crew. Mine would be a pretty small sample size so by no means definitive and it goes...
  82. Wookii

    Is Tom Barr's Approach Still The Go To Approach For Low Tech?

    I think the overriding point is healthy plant growth to achieve the layout design the owner intended is 'usually' the goal, but there are many techniques to achieve that. But for the beginner starting with their first tank, the technique needs to minimise risks (of algae and obvious plant health...
  83. Wookii

    Pump with good head?

    You would be better with an in tank stream pump - something like an AI Nero 3 is very small and would work well on that size tank, or Jebao make a similar cheaper unit if your budget is lower.
  84. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    Oh I see, yes the conductivity should be much higher shouldn't it, as it will gradually build up over time as you say.
  85. Wookii

    Cryptocoryne Usteriana

    This is what I was suspecting, that it prefers harder water. I've been quite surprised by the variation in crypt growth between species in my hard tap water tank vs the main very soft water tank. Many clearly do better in one versus the other.
  86. Wookii

    Cryptocoryne Usteriana

    I have some Crypt Usteriana, and mine haven't grown either - is your water quite soft? That said, I also have some Crypt crispatula which took about 4 months to start growing, and has now taken off like a rocket with leaves 80cm long, so I'm still holding out hope for the Usteriana.
  87. Wookii

    HOB and UG filter. Good idea?

    Surely it defeats the purpose of having a HOB filter - which is to have easy access to remove and clean the filter media. If you go with a UG, the gravel is the filter, so you just need a pump. Also, having had a number of HOB filters, most won't have anywhere near enough power to draw...
  88. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    That blows that out of the water then - as presumably the plants are consuming any nitrogen generated by the system (which is what you would expect anyway), if he has to add more manually. Yep, very long way from Blackwater with those parameters.
  89. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    How come Darrel?
  90. Wookii

    Current build status of my heavy driftwood tank

    That looks awesome @castle - my vote goes for keeping the planting minimal, some tall thin plants at the rear to help the illusion of height, loads of leaf litter, switch the lights out for a low output angled point source light, so give lots of dark shadows and some shimmer . . . Habitat style...
  91. Wookii

    Journal JUNGLE PUDDLE: Dooa Mizukusa wall

    Come on Ady, you can fit a bit more wood in there! 😜 Looks great as always, looking forward to see how this develops!
  92. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    1 micron?! That must clog in about a nanosecond! That issue aside, it's an interesting concept - if you could theoretically run the water through a 1 micron filter (or even a full HMA filter), you would essentially be cleaning the water pretty well. That said: Exactly, setting up some...
  93. Wookii

    C02 injection with already low ph

    @dw1305 has mentioned similar before - I'm interested to know (for my own purposes, and lacking the chemistry knowledge) do we know what is the ideal cut-off at which point pH measurements become too unreliable? Is it specifically hydrogen ions that need to be present, or any ions in general...
  94. Wookii

    Is it possible?

    That was my thought too - the tanks look very well maintained with very clean substrate - and with fish like that, there won't be any shrimp in there to do the job. Assuming he disposes of the waste water from vacuuming - on a tank that size, that's going to be a decent sized water change just...
  95. Wookii

    C02 injection with already low ph

    If the dKH of your tap water is correct and is 2dKH, then your degassed pH can't really be 6.4. What are you taking the pH measurement of, fresh tap water? Water straight out of the tap typically has a fair amount of dissolved CO2 in it, so try putting some in a clean glass, leaving it to degas...
  96. Wookii

    Do Pendant Lights Shine In Your Eyes?

    As per my reply to the same query in the other thread, I have the T90's. I was concerned that might be an issue, and had planned to make some shades, but it's not been an issue at all. I wonder if this is in part to the fact that I have them above head height, so when viewing the tank they are...
  97. Wookii

    Maq's Substrate Experiment

    What do you think is causing the drop in pH in tank D - it is just peat etc included in that product, or does it contain something else to acidify the soil (when used in gardening for example)?
  98. Wookii

    How to get RO water to the right gH and kH parameters?

    Yep Not at all. I was concerned that might be an issue, and had planned to make some shades, but it's not been an issue at all.
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