Hi there,
I'm new to this forum and am after some advice (after lurking around and reading lots of very useful articles). I've got a planted discus tank that is in need of a bit of tweaking to help the plants grow better and to reduce the amount of algae I get. As such, I'm going to play with moving the spray bars, but was wondering where the best place would be to place the CO2 reactor.
To give some background, the tank is 60" long x 18" wide x 24" deep, so approx 400L. The diary of the tank build can be found here: http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=70070. I have two external filters (1 eheim 2076, and 1 aquamanta 400) with the spray bars mounted at opposite ends of the tank pointing in to the middle. Currently, the CO2 reactor is mounted on the back wall of the tank, next to one of the filter intakes (the eheim one). My thinking is that I will re-locate the spray bars across the back wall of the tank, but am not sure where to move the CO2 reactor to to get a better dispersement of the gas throughout the tank. I'm also not convinced I have enough circulation going on and am thinking about adding a powerhead. Any thoughts on location of the reactor and whether I need a powerhead would be gratefully received.
A bit more on the tank - the substrate is about 1.5" of aquabasis covered with about 2-3" of JBl Manado. I'm running 4 x 54w T5's (2 x Tropic and 2 x Color) which I've got set up to come on in mixed pairs, the first from 12pm until 7pm and the other pair from 2pm until 8pm. The CO2 is a JBL kit with solenoid and comes on at 11am and runs until 7pm. The tank is quite well planted (and stocked !), and I've been using Ferropol weekly (topping up with each water change) and then Ferropol 24 dosed daily. I carry out water changes 3 times a week, changing approx 80L each time. When doing the water changes, I vacuum the substrate (by holding the syphon just above the surface of the substrate). Fish-wise, I've got 12 discus, 4 bolivian rams, 12 (or so) cardinal tetra, 8 rummy nose tetra, 8 ottos, 3 sterbai corys, 4 siamese algae eaters, a starlight plec, and a black ghost knife fish. I think. Well, you know, sometimes you lose count and those fish never stay still long enough to count them !!
Anyway, any thoughts, comments, guidance, etc. much appreciated.
Thanks
Richard
I'm new to this forum and am after some advice (after lurking around and reading lots of very useful articles). I've got a planted discus tank that is in need of a bit of tweaking to help the plants grow better and to reduce the amount of algae I get. As such, I'm going to play with moving the spray bars, but was wondering where the best place would be to place the CO2 reactor.
To give some background, the tank is 60" long x 18" wide x 24" deep, so approx 400L. The diary of the tank build can be found here: http://forum.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/showthread.php?t=70070. I have two external filters (1 eheim 2076, and 1 aquamanta 400) with the spray bars mounted at opposite ends of the tank pointing in to the middle. Currently, the CO2 reactor is mounted on the back wall of the tank, next to one of the filter intakes (the eheim one). My thinking is that I will re-locate the spray bars across the back wall of the tank, but am not sure where to move the CO2 reactor to to get a better dispersement of the gas throughout the tank. I'm also not convinced I have enough circulation going on and am thinking about adding a powerhead. Any thoughts on location of the reactor and whether I need a powerhead would be gratefully received.
A bit more on the tank - the substrate is about 1.5" of aquabasis covered with about 2-3" of JBl Manado. I'm running 4 x 54w T5's (2 x Tropic and 2 x Color) which I've got set up to come on in mixed pairs, the first from 12pm until 7pm and the other pair from 2pm until 8pm. The CO2 is a JBL kit with solenoid and comes on at 11am and runs until 7pm. The tank is quite well planted (and stocked !), and I've been using Ferropol weekly (topping up with each water change) and then Ferropol 24 dosed daily. I carry out water changes 3 times a week, changing approx 80L each time. When doing the water changes, I vacuum the substrate (by holding the syphon just above the surface of the substrate). Fish-wise, I've got 12 discus, 4 bolivian rams, 12 (or so) cardinal tetra, 8 rummy nose tetra, 8 ottos, 3 sterbai corys, 4 siamese algae eaters, a starlight plec, and a black ghost knife fish. I think. Well, you know, sometimes you lose count and those fish never stay still long enough to count them !!
Anyway, any thoughts, comments, guidance, etc. much appreciated.
Thanks
Richard