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Thank you for all your advice. We did a leak check by painting washing up liquid and previously found a leak around the bubble counter in our old diffuser which we replaced. I'll buy some more drop checkers and trim everything like you suggest. We've actually just finished making a reactor we...

Yes I'm using 4dKH. Theoretically I would have been able to check the solution with my Hanna pen but it currently its not working, might have to get a new one....

Hi thanks for your response, in answer to your questions - -We've have checked for leaks and haven't found any. -We are using a fire extinguisher with an inline diffuser. -The Co2 is permanently open because we used to only have it on during the day, for the last 8 years in fact, but with all...

I apologise because I'm sure this has been asked before but my search didn't bring anything up. I have been having CO2 problems for weeks, I either get a blue drop checker or a yellow drop checker, every time I try and tweak the CO2 over days it just doesn't budge. Meanwhile all the plants are...

Oh yes I'd forgotten reactors even existed to be honest! I never seem to get to the bottom of most of the CO2 problems. The last couple of months, the plants are looking happy and the drop checker is green. Then one day I notice the drop checker is blue, the plants are looking not happy. Check...

Hello, I'm thinking of getting either a new diffuser or putting a couple in gas parallel. I've got a 410 litre tank so I was hunting around for the largest diffuser I could find but so far I've got masses of vague reviews of diffusers in general when I search the internet. So I was wondering if...

I used my Hanna pen to test the water. It does Ph, Micro Siemens and PPM however it didn't show up as different to my regular water. Summer wasn't good but over the winter they've all normalised, they are both fabulous now, so I'd just leave them if I were you.

Simple answer is that I have never had to coat them before. Just fill them up, wait for the wood to expand and then off you go. Over 15 years of using barrels and this has never happened before. I'm rather presuming it is pandemic related as this is the only time it has happened.

I just left mine with everything in them over winter and both of them are fine now......

I've never lined them, never needed too, never had this problem before. I've never had to get the water moving with a pump or anything before either the waters always been crystal clear. The barrels do dry out put if you put water back in they inflate again, so it's not catastrophic. If you're...

Hi, To be honest it normally is really easy, I've had several water filled whiskey barrels over the years and normally everything is fine, no troubles at all. I think it's most likely something to do with the pandemic. All the pubs shut, the movement of barrels would have changed, so maybe none...

First time I had a barrel I lined it and the water just found it's way round it so I just took it out but that's why I didn't bother trying that this time. I found my hover fly larvae just died on the surface but now I do water changes there aren't any in there anymore. I reckon after winter...

Thank you they are quite old but they're still better than normal, maybe they like the stink!

Yes I think going forward buying whiskey barrels during a pandemic might be something I don't do again!

My mother suggested this too! And to be fair it looks good, pebbles help give it a rustic charm. My water lillies are doing well, got 2 flowers and 3 buds but a staggering amount of mosquito larvae. But it still smells awful and the other tub is quite a lot worse bc I haven't changed the water...

I haven't lost any plants but I think thats because I started started doing the water changes as soon as saw those rotting leaves, my dwarf water lilies cost £15 so really didn't want to loose it, plus I've had it about 10 years oh and I just took the Iris out because it was new and looked...

Well... it is still ongoing as it happens. I have 2 barrels but I've had to move the one from my front garden because the barrel has actually etched the top layer of my grey limestone cobbles off, so I've got a giant pale circle now annoyingly. I tested the water with my pH pen and it has a...

I have a ridiculous amount of frogs, there were over 50 last year, but I've haven't seen a toad. We have a hedgehog safe border around our house/garden so they have free reign and I have parts of the garden that I keep rough so that there are places to hide, but we don't have hedgehog home. I...

They remain unharmed, the slugs have been rampant so I need all the help I can get!

I have a pond so I could put them in there, judging by how many I have in both tubs they will have a bumper crop this year. I changed half the water a couple of days ago and it's not stopped raining since which is unusual here in Cambridge. It's also forecast to rain for the next 5 days which...

Great! I might be able to steal some from my fathers pond.....

I think it's probably whiskey related but obviously just guessing. The water lilies are thriving at least, I was wondering whether I should get some what I think people used to call Canadian pond weed to aid oxegenation? But I'm not sure if it actually does anything or shops just like say it...

Thats partly why I don't particularly want to kill them, I like hover flies. Chances are it is pretty anaerobic in there, never had this problem with barrels before I'm assuming they had longer since being actually used for whiskey compared to these ones. I'll change out half the water for now...

I have tried feeding live mosquito larvae to my fish before but unfortunately my fish didn't eat all of them and then they started flying out of the tank and my husband was not impressed!

Thank you for your reply. I'll do a water change today, it did do this initially as a fish tank approach but bc I was using stored planted tank water I thought I might be making it worse as obviously that water is quite rich organics!

Hello, I've had a water lily in a half whiskey barrel for about 10 years it's always been beautiful but the wood had started to go so I bought a couple of new barrels to replace the old one and start a new one off. I think these barrels have come fairly fresh from the brewery (guessing here )...

You are living the dream! When I moved into the current house I wanted to make the whole thing a water garden and just have walkways that led from the house to the garage but I was vetoed by the other half and then we had my daughter and then my son and the large-ish pond I had built had to be...

Hi I just thought I'd let you know I'm doing a water change today. I've added Prime ( I had no idea how concentrated it was amazing stuff!) although it does say that if I'm adding it directly to the aquarium I should dose for the whole tank volume so I have to dose twice as much? I have replaced...

I have a Hanna pen that does TDS, uS and pH, so I know I have high solids and can do pH easily before and after water changes and test straight from the tap. I presume a CO2 test would only be valid for a relatively short while as it gasses off? My husband is an electronic engineer and is...

Describes Cambridge perfectly! We have really high nitrates as well, at the limit last time I checked apparently from fertilizer run off. I don't suppose you would have any idea why we only seem able to get a breakdown of the water readings/test results from 2 years ago and none more recently? I...

I change the water at 7.30 am whole water change is finished before 10.30 when the Co2 comes on for 8 hours and the lights go on at 1.00pm for 8 hours. This was so we'd actually get a chance to see the tank with it's light on as we are usually out most of the day.

Cambridge water seems to do this quite a lot!

I'll order some I think, just in case, it'll be better than hurting the fish...

We have dates written in the calender, although we were about to change them early anyway as there was some work going on in the road and it made the water run brown for half a day so we thought that may have saturated the carbon filter. That was a few days ago though and this hypoxia after a...

No I'm doing the water change at 7.30 am fi Yes we have dates in the Always used them 20 years ago when I wasn't keeping plants, they seemed reasonable enough to show general trends, mind you whatever they said you ended up doing the same thing ie a water change. We used them when we did the...

I don't use a water conditioner because we have a specific chloramine cartridge for that, and a carbon filter too. I would go through a bottle a week with a tank this size! The dimensions are 216 cm long x 45cm deep x 54cm high. I do have sand in the fluidized bed, its been a favourite for...

I think I need to prioritise buying new drop checker fluid for sure. Have been experimenting a lot recently with different plant setups after I sold the Discus fish so its been a long time without livestock so got lazy, with CO2 just blasted in there. How do you calculate how long your CO2...

Blimey I had no idea it took so long to gas out!

I was doing it first thing to avoid wasting CO2 as I thought that was way that was considered most sensible, but as I seem to have too much CO2 I suppose this isn't a problem!

Hello everybody, I 'started a conversation" with Zeus which I thought would visible in the thread because I couldn't find a Reply button but it doesn't appear to be visible so I thought I'd better just respond here instead! (It's been a while.....) Oh I've just seen the quote button oops...

Hello, Not sure this is the appropriate section to post this but I have a group of 5 pretty small angelfish (about an inch wide) and I saw they were all gasping at the surface at around 8.30 in the evening. I've only had them about 5 days, the 24 Green neon were fine swimming about. It is a...

I do a 50% water change every week so I would have thought that unlikely, but I wonder about the substrate and maybe it breaking down a lot? It's 7.5 Ph and 445 ppm....

Well I'm going take a punt on it being something to do with temperature and I'm going to buy some of that hard water tolerant plant you suggested and see what happens. Well at least I feel if I ever sell my fish I've learnt so much from you guys I will a fighting chance of setting up a new tank...

The rocks are plum slate so they shouldn't effect the alkalinity?

It's so complex and there are so many variables, if it hadn't been so expensive and time consuming to set up my tank and convert to keeping plants I would have given up ages ago. Also its over 2 metres long and in my living room so its hard to ignore. I bought the plants from a local fish store...

This is the progression.......pictures taken from my previous thread Could it be the substrate? Tank in terminal decline... It was - Then it become - Now it is - And the Vallis - When the Discus were young the tank was fine, I haven't been able to work out why everything has being...

Yes well if my tank was Japanese it would have committed hara-kiri by now......

A lot of people talk about the plants being grown in the air and then having problems acclimatising to being underwater and these are very new plants so I wondered if it might be that because if so presumably they would resolve themselves in time without intervention. But the leaves are so thin...

An unpopular question its seems but does anyone know what might make my Echinodorus leaves curl? My tank is thoroughly stricken and there is more wrong with it than right with it. I'm trying to work out what has gone wrong so I bought a couple of easy plants to see what would happen to them...

Are you calling my fish gaudy? Obviously I'm deeply offended....no seriously if I was a user of emoticons I would have put one crying with laughter here but I feel too old for such things. So I've learnt what REDOX is now, and I read - <"Myriophyllum aquaticum Constructed Wetland Effectively...

Thank you for your reply, for some reason I didn't get an alert about it or I would have replied earlier. I'm glad once a week is enough as my tank still looks like the amazon three days later! It's quite a different colour and I'm wondering if It's ever going to go back to normal. The fish seem...

Just to be clear do I presume I add this three times a week when I add my usual trace ferts? It does seem unlikely if iron is so easy turned into a form that makes it unavailable for plants that my enriched substrate could have been making up for my inadequate fertilising previously. So...

Thank you SO much for clearing everything up! I asked my husband to help because I couldn't even manage the ppm = mg/litre and despite being an electronic engineer he still got it wrong. Always doing these things late at night after children and general stuff is my excuse. Because of everything...

Hi, The Rotala Butterfly calculator doesn't have the Chempak Sequestered Iron ( with Magnesium and Manganese ), it has DTPA 10%,11% and 8% but the one I've got says it DTPA 1.2% and it has options for EDDHA Fe 6% but I have 0.8% ? It says it's total iron soluble in water is 2.0% on the box. The...

Yes It's a conundrum! I was wondering if maybe the tubing was breaking down but its co2 rated. I've just received the Chempak Iron Darrel suggested so I'm going to see if that helps and then hopefully if I sell the fish I can start rescaping.

At the moment there are so few plants left that there is nothing impeding the flow of the co2. Our ph is high in Cambridge, never below 7, even with injected co2 and ferts it's around 7.5. I used to use an R.O unit and even then it was in the high 6s and 7s. I could buy more drop checkers and...

"Well you have to consider that some folk have huge success with plain gravel, I have used the same cat litter for the last 7-8 years and I still see heathy growth. So as long as you are using water column ferts in sufficient amounts, I personally doubt your issue is based around the substrate...

Hi, we got the 2kg bottles because they work out cheaper and we can actually fit them under the tank. We buy three each time so we always have one in reserve before we run out. We could turn the bubble rate up higher than we do but the fish don't like it? Drop checker is always yellow by the...

The lights are 8 x 50W LED's, they have brightness control already and are turned down to their lowest ebb. I also ended up with an accidental duckweed infestation that lasted for a couple of years but that died too when everything else started dying?

Yes the trouble with that of course is that we would never see the lights on, being out all day and I wouldn't be able to feed them in the light and then remove the uneaten food. Despite all that of course the tank did function well enough for a few years before it came to this, although I have...

Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it was too much light, having a husband who is an electronic engineer (who built the LED lights) who has no interest in fishtanks, plants or animals but gets very excited by various bits of circuitry is quite lightly to over do it. The other problem is that the...

I don't test, in part because of what I have read on this forum suggesting they are too imprecise and also because if I was syphoning out uneaten food and poo etc and doing proper big water changes every week there shouldn't be a build up of stuff anyway. I would, however, love to be able to...

Will attempt a video later when husband is around, but of course there is a lot more circulation now there are no plants in way! I either do a 50% water change every week or I do a 50% one and a 30% mid week aswell. The water coming in is filtered through a chloramine filter, an activated carbon...

I loved the driftwood, its still in the shed, I figure if I ever work out how to do an actual proper planted tank I can resurrect it! I hated the ADA Amazonia stuff and the other bits and pieces because the white pebble things were so light they constantly blocked the syphon and I always...

I obviously haven't mastered this quoting system....

The second bottle is the Chelated Trace bottle which stains the bottle itself, I'm assuming its the iron in it but really have no idea. And as it happens the first thing I put in the tank was an enormous sweeping piece of bog wood it looked fantastic but I couldn't cope with all the crud that...

To be honest I rarely get many new leaves these days, they are pale though and very thin. I will try adding the iron either way, I mean once I sell the fish I will start again but I would like to better understand why it has ended up like this. There are so many variables to consider when you...

Do you add a separate iron source, or just the traces? I don't add any separate iron, I looked up the Chempak Sequestered Iron on the link you sent, do you know if it will harm the fish and how much I should add? I am a gardener so do buy things like this for the garden but don't have to worry...

Hi, I have been using Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Phosphate, Magnesium Sulphate and chelated Trace. As they ran out we tried to find cheaper sources and so got some Bonsai food which I think was supposed to be Potassium Nitrate (?) and we got some Epsom Salts. Ceg's article described how...

Thank you for your response, the substrate is much higher at the back, but as you say it has got lower and lower as I've accidentally syphoned it out when cleaning. The tank has always had lots and lots of what I think is called mulm. I mean masses, I've never understood how planted tank people...

We've had some issues with the incoming water. It is filtered through a sediment, chloramine and an activated carbon cartridge system and inline heaters. We don't use RO because we had to use it for discus fish for years and it is so wasteful, we have quite hard water here and it is a large tank...

Almost too embarrassing to post ... First picture was about a year ago and second is today.

Hello, I wasn't sure where to put this post but seeing as we have changed just about everything else in the tank the substrate is the only thing left? We set up the tank in 2014, it is a large tank at 450 litres, we filled it with ADA Amazonia soil, power sand and this stuff that was made up...

Hello, In regards to this article so far that seems to be exactly what I have experienced, two worm/cyst things hatched and left the rummynose's face. It has been over a week and the rummynose is absolutely fine, racing around the tank and eating well. Also so far no one else seems to have got...

Hello Three-fingers, Thank you for the response. My pond has two virtually impossible to see goldfish in there, they've been there for 6 years so I presume they are healthy enough? I'll see if I can find a couple of snails and put them in. I've soaked the bloodworm in vits but hadn't thought...

Hello, I've been feeding other things with the blood worm, brineshrimp, mysis, prawn, muscles, occasional granules. I was concerned with the lack of nutrition so have been experimenting although I only feed them once a day. I did have some assassin snails but I think they only come out at night...

Hello, I have a Rummy Nose Tetra with two white worms on its face. I tried to get a photo but its just too quick for my camera. It seems unaffected by them, colour is good swimming and eating well. I have also, however, lost two Diamond Neon Tetra to some sort of wasting disease. I haven't...

Thank you for your response! Thats really good to now thank you, I have these weird home made lights as my husband is in electronics but we've never really been able to work out how strong they are as they are not any kind of standard LED's and don't translate into WPG in any useful way. Cheers!

Hello, Probably a stupid question but does anyone know why the leaves on my Echinodoros Palaefolius are turning red? I suspect its too much light as I moved it recently out of the shadows and then it the new growth has come in red/brown but I've no idea what I'm doing so thought I better ask.....

I'll keep the lights up then. I read somewhere ( probably on here ) that if you ran the tank with a lot of CO2 the plants developed around that amount, then plants that normally wouldn't need that much C02 end up needing more than they otherwise might of? If that makes any sense? Which is...

Thank you for your response! Yes I think I killed my fluidised bed filter so it probably did have to start again, I'll have to put in a non-return valve because I keep accidentally syphoning the sand out. I have some really unhappy Alternanthera Rosafolia do you think I should just remove them...

Thank you! It was origonally for Discus fish hence the size. Dying to put fish in it but it's all Brown.

Hello, I posted about a cyno problem a couple of weeks ago. I made a few changes to my regime after advice I received. I stopped dosing ferts completely (I was E.I dosing) after suggestions that my Amano substrate would be adequate on its own for the time being. I've started doing two water...

I might have rethink puffers, they are messy eaters....

I have no fish in there at the moment but eventually I was hoping to have quite a few dwarf puffers and so I would assume they would represent a very tasty meal to them?

At least I have more respect for cyanobacteria now. Do you think agitating the surface more would be good or should I pump some bubbles in there, I'm bound to have another pump somewhere. I was thinking I could top up the tank in the morning so as not to loose so much CO2, I could do this...

This is all very interesting because I wondered if having a rich substrate and Ei certs might be over doing it. I was haphazard at dosing the ferts bc I kept forgetting and then recently I got better at it as I made more effort! Today I did notice some other algae which I haven't looked up yet...

I could lower water level and then spraybar would make the surface very agitated? At night at least otherwise I would haemorrhage co2 presumably?

Any ideas as to why it would be so much worse after a water change?

Unfortunately a GP in England would never give me a prescription for my fish tank! I am allergic to penicillin so erythromycin is what I would get if I was ill but they still wouldn't give it to me even if I was good at faking it because I'm in my first trimester of pregnancy!

Ooooo I might try that today, at least I have kno3 at home.....

I could upload other photos but they all look like this one anyway! I might try taking some pictures at night because there are reflections everywhere. The tank has a black back and one side that is near a window. If I did use erythromycin where would I get it? I managed to get some antibiotics...

Yeah I'm hoping its not flow but it does strike me that it is worse on the grass than anywhere else. The tank is over 2 metres long but when we built the setup we made the calculations for the flow rate with our expected back pressure from the pipe work, we aimed for 10 times the volume of the...

My water isn't RO but it is filtered through separate chloramine, sediment and activated carbon (coconut) canisters. I live in Cambridge which has pretty awful water. It is pretty hard and as far as I am aware has the highest legal limits of nitrates allowed (from farming apparently). I had an...

The bizarre thing is I am finding that the day after my weekly 50% water change the Ciano is much much worse. It was actually why I thought I'd write the post because It just baffles me. I am assuming if my lack of algal growth is down to the plant growth being vigorous enough to use up the...

Righto. Thank you for your responses. I'll try and get some pictures sorted today/tonight. Also I didn't realise you could test for Silicates? I'm going the to my LFS this afternoon anyway so I'll see what they have. I'll have a read of that article too. Thank you!!

Hello, I have my first aquascape going for a couple of months now and I am having issues with cyano but as I said I don't have any algae problems. Does the presence of one and not the other tell you anything about the setup, if you know what I mean? I would love to add fish, particularly Dwarf...

I was planning to get some pygmy puffer fish and maybe something like a small schoaling fish like some lamp eyes. We've been having real problems with our CO2, we should have a needle valve by the end of the week. If it is a CO2 problem and we manage to fix it will the Eleocharis get better or...