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Any advice welcome

uk bulldog

Seedling
Joined
18 Nov 2012
Messages
22
Location
london
Hi all as being new to planted tanks & takeing on a new project of a 500litre display tank i was wondering what would be the best type of substrate to use? I will be keeping mainly angels as that is what i breed & my tank will have a 3D amazon background,i also want to use black quartz gravel.What are your thoughts? I have seen john innes N#3 under the black quartz but am unsure as to wether i will need this aswell as the gravel.

Paul
 
Hi Foxfish sorry i should have mentioned that yes i do intend on useing Co2
 
Hello,
I strongly suggest that you avoid 3D backgrounds for now, as I suspect they have a negative impact on nutrient and CO2 distribution.

You can use any gravel you want as long as you dose the water column. Organic sediments such as compost can be used as they are inexpensive, however, if you are consistently uprooting and replanting then things tend to get messy. Most people use simple clay substrates, some of which are fortified with nutrients (and which are expensive) and others which are inert (and cheap). Have a look at the thread viewtopic.php?f=17&t=13801

Cheers,
 
Hi ceg4048 thanks for the reply & the link to the other thread as it as given me more of an insight as to which substrate to use,to which i feel the ADA will be the way to go as it also has peat which will be good for my angels & the Ph levels aswell as the plants,but as far as the 3D background goes this is already a feature in my tank so was wondering why you suspect they have a negative impact on nutrient & Co2 distribution as it would be a shame to have to remove it,& surely there must be a way around any problems that may be caused with this issue.

Paul
 
Hello,
The peat that is part of the Aquasoil construct will not have any noticeable impact. The peat is there in small amount in order to feed the bacteria. If you plan on using CO2 you will find that the pH will fall a tremendous amount because CO2 mixed with water produces an acid called carbonic acid. Furthermore your angels will not care on bit about the pH and you are advised to abandon any policy which attempts to manipulate the tanks pH. There are too many disparate natural forces acting in the tank for you to control the pH without doing damage. Therefore let the pH fall where it may and concentrate more on keeping the tank clean, distributing the flow properly and in feeding the plants and maintaining your aquascape. Fish actually don't have any health concerns as a result of pH, so this is good news because it's one less thing to worry about.

Cheers,
 
Hi ceg4048 can you please elaborate on the problems i may have by haveing a 3d background.

Paul
 
Hi,
Well the problems in large tanks have to do with the distribution of flow. The 3D backgrounds evidently have a negative impact on the movement of water across the tank. In a CO2 injected tank flow and distribution patterns of water is critical, especially in those tanks which are highly lit. Have a look at the thread viewtopic.php?f=19&t=23201

Cheers,
 
Well what we are trying to achieve is a lovely smooth circular flow withing the tank to assist in the C02 & fertilisers feeding all our plants on an equal level so.... We have found that not only the hardscape in the tank effect flow but also the back pane of glass has an effect also!
Most folk who are just setting out on the planted tank scene are advised to use a full length spray bar fitted along the back on the tank & just below the water level. This set up will send a flow across the surface towards the front of the tank down the front wall, along the bottom, up the back wall & back across the top & so on...
We would advise a flat clean rear glass, however if you are really keen to keep the 3d effect it might be possible just not so easy!
 
Thanks for the replys guys i now understand what you are saying & it all makes a lot of sence although i had already thought about a full lengh spraybar as i had my background made just short enough so i could encorporate this but you have now given me food for thought on how i can solve this problem with the flow so as to still acheve the desired flow required.

Paul
 
ceg4048 said:
Hello,
Therefore let the pH fall where it may and concentrate more on keeping the tank clean, distributing the flow properly and in feeding the plants and maintaining your aquascape. Fish actually don't have any health concerns as a result of pH, so this is good news because it's one less thing to worry about.

Cheers,

Hi Clive, I am not going to hijack the guys thread here, but would be very grateful if you could expand on the text highlighted in bold above. I have heard so many stories and people talking about a PH crash killing or being harmful to their fish. The PH Crash being due to the water's lack of buffering capacity and so on. Is this not true then?

Cheers,

Steve
 
Hi Paul
I breed Angels too - and there's absolutely no problems with pH. Might be if wild collected, but I've bred wild collected Peruvian Altum (and yes, I know they're not Altum!) without problems.
Mick.
 
Hi Steve,
As Mick confirms the situation in this hobby with pH is very similar to the situation with nitrate. People have a problem in their tank which affects the pH at the same time, i.e, some toxic agent which is killing their fish and so they blame the pH instead of looking deeper into the cause and finding the agent responsible for simultaneously killing the fish and for affecting the pH.

Think about what happens for example if a moderate sized fish dies and goes unnoticed in the tank. The body decays and pollutes the tank. The ammonia in the tank raises the alkalinity but it also poisons the other fish in the tank. So the hobbyists measures the pH and discovers that it is high...and concludes that high pH kills the fish.

The reverse reaction happens more often, especially in CO2 injected tanks. If you overdose your CO2 application it drives the pH low due to the carbonic acid right? If the alkalinity of the water is low (i.e, low KH) then the acidity of the water becomes extreme. The fish die. What killed the fish, low pH? No, they died of CO2 poisoning which causes the blood to acidify. The pH of the water is irrelevant at that point.

So when we have an unusual pH reading and when we suspect a problem we need to troubleshoot the cause of the unusual pH, because that will be the same cause that is causing the toxicity. Fish have a very wide tolerance for the variations in natural pH, but the pH must be considered within the context of the system. South American fish especially live in highly acidic waters which are often stained by high concentrations of tannic acids, so it's very unlikely that a low pH can kill these fish. However, many people dump highly toxic acids into the tank trying to control the pH, strong acids such as Phosphoric or Sulfuric acids which are strong acids and which burn the gills and mucous membranes resulting in asphyxiation. These strong acids also drive the pH low but they are toxic whereas weak, non-toxic acids such as tannic or carbonic acids are weak acids but which drive the pH just as low without doing any damage.

Cheers,
 
Hi Steve i have had a Ph crash in the past that has led to fish dyeing but that was due to me useing RO water to lower the Kh & through not monitoring the amount of RO used my Ph crashed well below what my fish would toloerate & a very unstable Ph level at that,that inturn led to an expensive mistake i will not make again.I never use chemicals to adjust Ph as fish as a rule are quite tolerant to reasonably high Ph but not to low.

Mike its was good to hear that you have had good results with breeding your angels while useing Co2 as that is quite reashoreing, even though i dont intend to breed in this tank i have considered keeping wild caught altums in it due to the height being 30 inch & trying to make it am amazonion bio-tope as long as i can acheive the results i want & im now sure that with the great help of some of the knowlegable members here i will get there in the end.
P.S sorry about my spelling as its not my strong point.

Paul
 
Hi uk bulldog, i have been stuck in your position before and had trial and errors the best way bud is not the cheap quick option save a little money and buy yourself some ADA there is no point taking short cuts bud as it will just come back and haunt you in the future if your going to do a job then like they say unfortunately "do it properly" the best way i suggest is the ADA by far.

Also what plants are you planning on putting in ?
How deep is your tank (height) ?
And are you planning on having any of the plants growing up out of the water ?

Daza.
 
Clive,

Thanks for that explanation. Yet another LFS myth put to bed.

Does this now mean that I can adjust the PH setting on my PH sensor to say 6.30 and get more CO2 into the water without doing any damage? I only ask this because the setting of 6.50 does not seem to have much affect on the colour of the drop checker, lately it is still dark green most of the time and I know you are a big fan of bright yellow before lights on and darker green by the end of the day.

Cheers,

Steve
 
Hi UK Bulldog I tend to agree mostly with what daza 141 says here. The cheaper quick fix routes are not the best, although that said there are plenty of options that are not quite as expensive as the ADA route. Tetra, Dennerle to name a few have a pretty good mineral substrate to put under whatever gravel substrate you decide to go for. I have used plain old quartz gravel in the past with the under gravel fertiliser.

Have a look at this little link if you find time.

http://home.infinet.net/teban/jamie.htm

Cheers,

Steve

ps don't worry about your mishspelling noe ones going to take the pyth here :D :D

p.s I just remembered here is another link for some good kit

http://www.sera.de/typo3temp/pics/5d3aca5f7d.jpg

http://www.sera.de/uk/pages/products/category/370.html
 
Akadama is super cheap if you're prepared to do the leg work and has a higher CEC than ada's aquasoil, isn't as pretty though, tropica's base layer is very good too and much cheaper to buy but costs average out at about the same once you factor in gravel/sand.

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/akadama.htm
 
However if you do opt for the Akadama then i would suggest you let it cycle for at least 3 weeks as it will bring the PH and KH levels up !!.
 
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