16 gallon Rescape Journal

[Arana]

the plants look great dan, they will complement the wood well once they grow in

 

[daniel19831123]

Wow Dan! Great work on this, I wish I'd not been working! I can't wait to see how this comes on, all I can suggest is to up your co2 and ferts and see how it goes, something to really turbo charge that growth.
How are your shrimp I'm thinking of getting some more but I can't be dealing with the loss, I'm sure its something in our water I just can't pinpoint what.

Yeah it's definitely something in our water. i don't know any other place that has tap water with nitrate of 50 ppm! I know that poor packaging sometimes results in shrimp arrived alive but then takes week to die but the shrimp was looking alright when they were in my tank and then they started gradually dieing off... I'm going to give it another try but this time with Ro water remineralised. If they still die on me, I will then blame it on my poor tank maintenance. lol

 

[Garuf]

I dunno, even when I was cleaning my filter once a week and doing 80% water changes I was losing shrimp, snails too thinking about it. Maybe we're missing out on calcium or something?

 

[daniel19831123]

yeah I lost a lot of snails too surprisingly. Our water is loaded with calcium but no magnesium in it. The whole stoke on trent and the nearby area is supply by the severn water supply and you can get a full report on the water parameter online. yeah that's pretty much what I was doing, cleaning filter every week and 50% water change every week. Initially I thought it's my EI that killed the shrimp since my japonica shrimp seemed to be fine. I think it's those finicky shrimp that we'll have problem with.

 

[Garuf]

I don't think so, I've lost cherries tigers and amano's all in our water, I'd be interested to see how RO goes, also I read that filtering the water through activated carbon before use could help. I've heard that our water pipes are all still lead, could be a problem, no?

 

[Arana]

I've heard that our water pipes are all still lead, could be a problem, no?

YES

 

[Steve Smith]

Would using a good dechlorinator help, one with good heavy metal removing ability? Not sure about lead though...

 

[daniel19831123]

I've done that before. I'm using prime and I'm using 3 times the recommended dose and still the shrimp died. I think it only binds the metal temporarily and then eventually it will release it. Hehe well at least I managed to keep all my amano alive. I might try using one tank with just pure Ro water and then when the shrimp established itself and finger cross and start breeding, I will add a bag of carbon to my bigger tank and see if this clear the water issue. If this trick works then it will work out much cheaper to replace the carbon than to buy RO water every week for water change. It's £2.50 per 25 litre! so which means I will probably be spending 5 quid a week on water changing.

 

[Steve Smith]

Or, source a cheap RO unit. Seen some going on eBay for £20 - £30 recently... I don't know much about RO though, so I could be wrong...

 

[Garuf]

It's not carbon in the tank, its filtering the water with carbon BEFORE adding it to the tank, I read a few shrimp folks swear by it.

 

[daniel19831123]

I could get a cheap source of RO unit but the thing is that I live in a rented accomodation and I don't I can install it in this place. Unless someone is willing to install it for me, I'm more than happy to pay for the price of the unit. lol. Gareth, you listening?

 

[Garuf]

Huh? What was that Dan? I'm abit out of the way just to collect water am I not? I'll see what I can do however, thinking about it I'm sure there's a reefer in my village I might skate down and ask them what they use.

 

[Ed Seeley]

If you get an RO unit get a decent one and it will last for ages. Mine's from RO Man and it has been great (over 5 years old now and still on the same membrane, just replace the prefilters every 6 months or so). They are dead easy to plumb in and you can simply remove it and take it with you if you move house.

 

[daniel19831123]

Don't you have to drill a hole in the in coming water supply and another hole in the out going drain and plumb the whole thing. I'm not even sure how to shut the main water supply off in this house! Does anyone has any step by step instruction with picture how to plumb an RO unit? I've been looking on the net and the one I see so far are complicated.

 

[Ed Seeley]

Don't you have to drill a hole in the in coming water supply and another hole in the out going drain and plumb the whole thing. I'm not even sure how to shut the main water supply off in this house! Does anyone has any step by step instruction with picture how to plumb an RO unit? I've been looking on the net and the one I see so far are complicated.

You have to either pierce the cold water feed using the fiting supplied or you can get a different fitting to fit the mains feed onto a threaded tap fitting too. All you do is find a point on the copper pipe and screw the fitting on; it pierces the pipe as you fit it! It's dead easy and a small fitting that a landlord probably wouldn't notice...

As to the waste, yes it has to go into a waste point (or you can save the waste water too to use in a hard water tank or pond or put it out into the garden onto plants that need a lot of water like a bog garden). However this simply means pushing the green waste line into a drain somewhere. Mine used to go into the waste feed from the washing machine in the garage.

More tricky is how you save the product water. Personally I have a water barrel in the garage with an automatic top-up. I have a tap on the barrel and simply fill a container quickly from there and then this barrel slowly tops up and stops automatically when full again.

It looks and sounds way more complicated than it actually is.

I've posted photos and an explanation of my set up here.

 

[daniel19831123]

Well just decided to take the plunge and buy a 50 GPD reverse osmosis unit. I think I'm going to stick with the needle clamp method as it looks much easier than it is. It's still a little scary as I still can't find the main water supply shut off in my house. It better not leak or else I wouldn't know how to clear up this mess!

Will be thinking of getting some SAE in my tank and probably some cherries shrimp. Has anyone kept dwarf shrimp and SAE together? Any idea if they will snack on the shrimplets?

 

[Themuleous]

I attach mine to the outside tap with a hozeloc connector, that way it's completely removable without any permanent damage. It also means the waste runs onto the garden.

I got mine from Osmotics.co.uk. I find the website a million times easier to use and for a 50GPD unit (with DI pod) its cheaper, by quite a bit.

http://www.ro-man.com/shop/product_info ... ucts_id/90

http://www.osmotics.co.uk/4-stage-50-ga ... Path=46_79

FYI - I just added a second membrane to mine, so the waste from the first gets recycled into a second membrane. Its upped the product water rate by loads and greatly reduces the amount of waste water. I might even get a third and recycle the recycled wasted!

Sam

PS - I highly recommend osmotics. Customer support is superb, just like AE.

 

[daniel19831123]

arghhhh now I'm gutted. for the same price I could have get a 4 stage filter! when you said 2nd membrane do you actually mean like a second set or RO unit and just connecting the waste to the inlet of the second unit to be filter again?

 

[Themuleous]

No, not a compete second kit, its literally a second membrane in housing that just clips onto what you have.

This is what I bought

Then I just added a second membrane in between the first membrane and the DI pod

The waste water from the first membrane gets pumped into the second, new membrane. Then the product water from both does into the DI pod.

Hope that helps. The blue tubing has product water. Its far simpler to do than I had thought to be honest

Sam

 

[daniel19831123]

Got my RO kit today! Love it! Too bad the pipe system in this house is all hidden behind the wooden plank. I had to squeeze in the small aperture to get to the cold water pipe and fit it just to realise later when I need to tighten the nut, my wrench was too big to fit in the place. Picture to follow to demonstrate my point. Can't even check if it's just condensation or water leaking because it's damn dark. lol

Hopefully this don't turn out to be a nightmare

This goes to prove sometimes size does matter!

This pipe is so hidden that I don't think anyone will ever find out I made a hole in the pipe