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couple of questions

tyke_uk

Member
Joined
10 Feb 2009
Messages
40
Location
Wakefield
hiya: just a couple of questions. Tank is six weeks old now and apart from a couple of alge issuses so far so good.My first question is i want to start adding a few fish, my previous set ups were marine and didnt do 50% water changes which seems mainly the norm in planted aquaria do most people heat the water before adding the fresh water to the tank ?as it seems an awful lot of cold water to add to the system where fish are present. my second question is i use ro water for water changes recently ive had bga outbreak ive done a 72 hr blackout which got rid not completely but nowhere near as bad im taking steps to keep it away can anyone tell me how to raise the nitrate level im adding 1/2 a tspoon of kn03 every other day but having no effect ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 0 many thanks for any replys.(ive already had the ammonia and nitrite peaks)
 
yes when you do a water change its best to heat the water 1st...i fill a half bucket of water from hot tap and half form cold tap and i temp gauge it by touch.

ceg will help you with question 2...just make shure your sitting down when you read his reply :lol:
 
hi the only trouble with that is i use ro water so i suppose i will have to get a heater to heat the 15g of water i change thanks for the reply and hopefully someone can answer my other question :D
 
tyke_uk said:
hiya: just a couple of questions. Tank is six weeks old now and apart from a couple of alge issuses so far so good.My first question is i want to start adding a few fish, my previous set ups were marine and didnt do 50% water changes which seems mainly the norm in planted aquaria do most people heat the water before adding the fresh water to the tank ?as it seems an awful lot of cold water to add to the system where fish are present. my second question is i use ro water for water changes recently ive had bga outbreak ive done a 72 hr blackout which got rid not completely but nowhere near as bad im taking steps to keep it away can anyone tell me how to raise the nitrate level im adding 1/2 a tspoon of kn03 every other day but having no effect ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 0 many thanks for any replys.(ive already had the ammonia and nitrite peaks)
Well, first of all, doing any kind of water change is dependent on whether you inject CO2 (or add liquid carbon). If this is a non carbon enriched planted tank then you don't need to do water changes at all so that would fix that problem right away.

Second of all how are you determining that your nitrate level is zero? Are you using a test kit? If so then it's probably lying to you so it's best to throw it away.

Nitrate levels is raised by adding nitrate, which you are doing but you haven't stated what size tank you have. You have mentioned 15 gallons but it's not clear whether your tank is a 30 gallon based on the 50% water change rule. Can you confirm? If your tank is 30g and if you are adding 1/2 teaspoon KNO3 every other day then it's very unlikely that your nitrate level is zero.

Is there a reason you are using RO water? Do you intend to breed softwater fish? If not then you don't really need to use RO for the plants so you can make your life a lot less complicated by just using tap.

It's also not clear how much light you are using, how often you have clean your filter or how much flow/filtration you have in the tank so you should clarify this. Pictures of your algae might also help so that we can verify that in fact it is BGA and not some other type.

Cheers,
 
Thanks ceg for the reply. i am injecting co2 dropchecker lime green/yellow and yes im using an api test kit to monitor nitrate levels my tank 190l around 43 gallons i guess. im adding 4mls of maco and micro solutions per day using the pps pro system also the 1/2 tspoon of kno3.I have an ro unit left over from my marine days would you stop using it? if so how do you condition your water?(just declorinator etc) lighting is 56watts of t5 with reflectors on for six hrs a day (dropped it by a couple of hrs when bga alge struck) filtration is the jewel system 600l an hour i think. clean filter once a month not all the media rotating at different intervals.i change the filter wool pad every week. i also have a korilia1 for circulation forgot to mention co2 comes on 2hrs before lights and goes off an hour before. and it was definatley bga also have a little bit of hair alge i trim the affected areas and syphon off any bga i can also remove any dead leaves or matter from the tank thanks for you help :D
 
I think you will need to 'adjust' the PPS Pro dosing. It is lean dosing to the extreme IMO and can work. There are quite a few successes with it but is far harder to keep running well than dosing Ei.

PPS Pro does not require 50% water changes. You want to keep some of the 'excess' within the tank.

I would guess your Nitrates are actually as low as you say (although I would not trust the kit as Ceg said) and that is causing you to get BGA.

You could go for 10-20% water weekly and with this lower amount no need to warm it up. The fish will more likely than not respond positively to the slight temperature change. There are exceptions to the rule but I have always found that all the fish that I have kept have linked the colder water to a natural rainfall etc.

I wouldn't run PPS Pro in conjunction with RO myself. Tap water contains many 'goodies' and 'tops up' the PPS Pro lean dosing a little.

AC
 
im confused by ceg's initial reply. i thought you had to do water changes no matter what, as that fish's waste will cause ammonia levels to build up and eventually it will be very high. maybe im wrong.......... :?:
 
Nick16 said:
im confused by ceg's initial reply. i thought you had to do water changes no matter what, as that fish's waste will cause ammonia levels to build up and eventually it will be very high. maybe im wrong.......... :?:
Hi Nick
Have a look here: Nitrogen cycle
As long as you stock sensibly you shouldn't run into any toxicity issues in a low tech tank
 
i have a tank with no substrate, a reasonable amount of fish for a 30USG, only anubias and java fern and i dont really add anything, does this count as low tech. oh and 30w of lighting = 1WPG. however, i may tear it down and have a bit of sand in the bottom and have a go at breeding corries..... any thoughts on that.?
 
SuperColey1 said:
I think you will need to 'adjust' the PPS Pro dosing. It is lean dosing to the extreme IMO and can work. There are quite a few successes with it but is far harder to keep running well than dosing Ei.

PPS Pro does not require 50% water changes. You want to keep some of the 'excess' within the tank.

I would guess your Nitrates are actually as low as you say (although I would not trust the kit as Ceg said) and that is causing you to get BGA.

You could go for 10-20% water weekly and with this lower amount no need to warm it up. The fish will more likely than not respond positively to the slight temperature change. There are exceptions to the rule but I have always found that all the fish that I have kept have linked the colder water to a natural rainfall etc.

I wouldn't run PPS Pro in conjunction with RO myself. Tap water contains many 'goodies' and 'tops up' the PPS Pro lean dosing a little.

AC
i would like to give the Ei dosing system ago and have read the sticky many times even printed it out but i cant really get my head around it thats why ive been sticking with the pps system of dosing.Can i ask what you add to your tap water for your changes think im going give the ro unit a miss and do 15% a week thanks.
 
I do EI and 50% water changes. Then I add 1.5ml of King British Pond Dechlor to each bucket. I do 3 warm buckets and then the last 2 are plain cold. (5 buckets)

When I did PMDD+PO4 I did 1 bucket twice a week pure cold from the tap.

AC
 
tyke_uk said:
i would like to give the Ei dosing system ago and have read the sticky many times even printed it out but i cant really get my head around it thats why ive been sticking with the pps system of dosing.Can i ask what you add to your tap water for your changes think im going give the ro unit a miss and do 15% a week thanks.
Well it always boggles my mind why folks don't get it and I wonder whether they are reading the same thing I am. The articles spells it all out for you so you only have to do a few basic calculations. For a 40 gallon tank all you have to do is multiply the reference tank by 2 so the sample dosing scheme becomes as follows:

Sunday – 50% or more Water Change then dose [1/2 teaspoon KNO3] + [1/8 teaspoon KH2PO4] + [1/4 teaspoon MgSO4]
Monday – 1/8 teaspoon CSM+B
Tuesday - [1/2 teaspoon KNO3] + [1/8 teaspoon KH2PO4] + [1/4 teaspoon MgSO4]
Wednesday - 1/8 teaspoon CSM+B
Thursday - [1/2 teaspoon KNO3] + [1/8 teaspoon KH2PO4] + [1/4 teaspoon MgSO4]
Friday – Rest
Saturday - Rest

This is so simple it's amazing. All I did was to round the numbers up to reasonable values. There is no way you'll run low with this and it should eliminate all of the non CO2 related algae. You can then throw away the test kits because they add no value whatsoever. If you are still getting these forms of algae then you'd have to assume that it's an issue with the flow and distribution in the tank. Personally I don't think that 600LPH is sufficient really but it's not clear to me what the powerhead output is. For that size tank you would really be looking at around 1700LPH combined total rating. If you have at or near that value already then you might want to look at the flow patterns by moving some things around or by repositioning the powerhead or filter output.

As SuperColey1 says, ditch the RO unit and save yourself some trouble. In marine tanks this is very necessary but in planted tanks there is no requirement for RO.

Nick16 said:
im confused by ceg's initial reply. i thought you had to do water changes no matter what, as that fish's waste will cause ammonia levels to build up and eventually it will be very high. maybe im wrong.......... :?:
It's as YzemaN says. In a low tech planted tank the plants will recycle the ammonia and will use the nitrate that results from whatever ammonia they don't use. In low tech the plants clean up the water so you don't have to. Remember we are talking about planted tanks though and we're talking about non-CO2 enriched, which means non-injected and no liquid carbon products.


Cheers,
 
Ceg, quick question, in the post on EI Dry salt dosing, the reference 20g tank. You state that it should be ½ teaspoon MgSO4 for 20G. But here in this post for the OP who's tank is 40G you tell him to dose 1/4 teaspoon MgSO4. Should he not be dosing 1 teaspoon of MgS04? Or is my maths wrong somehow :$
 
Hi Jack,
You math is perfect it's just that I can never really tell how much MgSo4 to add since it depends on the persons water. Some people have high Mg content already and don't even need it but we can never tell so i erred on the high side. A lot of people were having trouble dissolving the MgSO4 with the huge quantities I was suggesting so I just scaled back the numbers. The reason? Mg is not that big of a deal. It's not like NO3 or PO4 where huge quantities are needed and where you have to be stringent. It's a trace, so although there is nothing wrong with dumping large quantities in the tank this might be wasteful and it could cause issues with dissolving in the stock solution. Apologies if I confused you on this. :?

Cheers,
 
Thanks for the reply Clive,

Understand now, perfectly :D

Cheers

Jack
 
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