• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Mike's fish room musings

MichaelJ

Member
Joined
9 Feb 2021
Messages
3,350
Location
Minnesota, USA
Hello, I've been planning a journal for a while. Since I am not setting up a new tank, is not an aquascaper or run particularly aesthetic tanks (they are more like hodgepodges quite frankly - sort of like nature), I am going to concentrate on the practical approaches that’s been working for my two very healthy (as far as I can tell) relatively densely planted low-tech tanks. Everyone are encouraged to comment and make suggestions etc. as long as everyone have fun!

I guess speaking about my setups may be a good place to start. Right now I have two established low-tech tanks - they have been running without too many equipment changes since I rebooted the hobby about 3 years ago. They are identical in terms of equipment, so lets start there:

Rimmed glass-covered tanks with a net volume of 150L (40 US Gallon) . I do not know (or remember) what brand they are - I bought them at a warehouse sale at a regional fish store here in Minnesota, USA. External measurements are 92 cm (36”) x 46 cm (18”) x 41 cm (16”) - or 173 L gross. I always thought these deeper tanks (as in distance from front- to back glass relative to height) made the most sense for livestock and plants as you have more relative surface area compared to a skinny tall tank. You can put more plants in, benefits bottom dwellers, provide more sense of safety for the livestock and improve aeration among other things. Although the workmanship is pretty good, I got a bit bummed out after setting them up realizing the glass have a relatively high iron content, which cause a very slight but noticeable greenish tint. If I ever decide to join the sand people aka switch my substrate, I will probably take the opportunity to replace them with higher quality, but equal sized tanks. A big project - I know.

Equipment in each tank:

- 2 x Seachem Tidal 35 HOB filters. I choose to have two smaller HOB’s instead of one large - say Tidal 55 or 75 - to optimize coverage and surface agitation and to provide more filter volume vs. one large HOB. For filter media I eventually settled on using a sponge at the bottom and Seachem Matrix biomedia (expensive but will literally last an eternity) - I use Seachem Purigen in one of the tanks as well. What I particular like about HOB’s is the simplicity and safety; point of catastrophic failure (i.e. a flooded floor) is limited to the outlet lip which is exceedingly unlikely to ever clog up. In a low-tech tank we really don’t need much filtration if we have a lot of plants relative to livestock - of course, we still need proper flow throughout the tank for nutrient distribution, gas exchange etc.. The Tidal’s are extremely easy to maintain; it takes me literally a couple of minutes to remove the media baskets and clean the filter media on each tank. They consume 6 watt each.

- 1 x UV filters (9 watt Green Killing Machine). I initially bought one UV filter to quell what I thought at the time was a bacteria bloom... Eventually I added one to each tank to kill free floating algae spores and eventually - and more importantly (probably) - pathogens. I mostly run them on a timer for 4-5 hours a day, but sometimes I disable the timer and let them run 24/7 for a week or so, mainly if I see a fish being not completely up to par. I consider the value of UV filter to be somewhat questionable and hard to quantify - I don't think I've encountered any downsides using them. Its definitely not a substitute for proper maintenance - on the other hand, in 3 years I don't think I have lost any individual fish due to apparent illness. Well, I bought them, so I might as well use them!

- 2 x Aqueon Optibright+ LED fixtures (remote controlled) with builtin timer, sunset/sunrise modes and adjustable intensity and color temp. After doing research on way more expensive options, I ended up using 2 cheaper fixtures on each tank because I had to have them sitting right on the top of the tanks glass cover (having the lights hanging from the ceiling was non-negotiable) thus limiting the uniformity of the illumination throughout the tank. I like how easy they are to program and adjust with the remote and as a bonus they can all be paired to the same remote so I essentially control all 4 lights (2 on each tank) with only one remote. I run my lights for +12 hours per day with a 30 minute ramp ("sunrise" at 11:30am to "sunset" at midnight). I do find myself overriding this quite often to add another hour or so in the night. Dont ask me about PAR or wattage equivalent... I don't know :) . At full blast each panel draws around 15 watts I believe... If I crank them to the MAX they provide A LOT of light, but I run them at probably 15-20% of max output - plenty! (slightly more in one of the tanks, but more of that way later).

- 2 x Aquael Pat Mini internal filters mainly to optimize flow and nutrient distribution around the denser part of the - often overlooked - bottom of the tanks, but I also noticed that the filters due to their location closer to the bottom sucks up quite a bit of detritus. One in each tank are further connected to an aeration tube to increase oxygenation. The Pat Minis uses a dense sponge (100% shrimplet and fry safe in my experience). They are easy to maintain, but due to the small size and density of the sponge, they need to be cleaned every two weeks or so to maintain nominal flow.

- 1 x Hygger heather (150 W - can't remember the model). We keep the “fish room” (which is actually the family room/2nd living room) at 22-23 C (~72 F) and both tanks at 23-24 C (~74 F) all year around. Our house is build on a grade where about half of the lower level of the house, where the fish tanks are located, is below ground level so the temperature is very stable all year around. I monitor my tanks temperature with an external LED thermometer - two in each tank .

That’s it! Next post will be about what is in the tanks and what makes them tick … and maybe some pictures.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
may I ask how the lean tank is doing in comparison? And how much in terms of ppm you’re dosing?
Any noticeable difference to the other tank? And also when are you getting more plants (not a question of if, but when ,obviously.)
 
may I ask how the lean tank is doing in comparison? And how much in terms of ppm you’re dosing?
Any noticeable difference to the other tank? And also when are you getting more plants (not a question of if, but when ,obviously.)
Hi @plantnoobdude, I am planning to write all that up separately. But the short story is that my scrawny stem clippings ultimately didn't make it - they did well for a couple of months, but the traveling etc. over the spring/summer forced me to be less than vigilant on my maintenance regime including dosing - I doubt the stems would have made it anyway. Everything else in the lean tank is still doing very well however, and I still keep the weekly N target at a modest 1 ppm/week using Tropica Specialized as advised by @Happi. Everything else - Ca, Mg and some K comes from my remineralization (and waste :) ). The two tanks are sort of hard to compare straight up, but I'd say they are doing fairly equally - I do have a bit of algae in the lean tank (nothing alarming) which runs a higher light and lean whereas the other tank runs at lower light and a more elaborate EI based fertilizer regime. I am planning to re-boot the lean experiment with new and this time more expensive potted stem plants probably in the coming months.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
Yey, a journal at last @MichaelJ . . . But . . .

Pictures or it didn't happen.

So . . .

I need to get my real camera out for the next installment.

1667070122218.jpeg
 
Inside Tank 1 - aka the Shrimp Tank

As mentioned I have two tanks. I have sort of become accustomed to referring to my tanks as the Shrimp tank and the other as the Angle tank (you guessed it, its because there is a pair of prominent angle fish in the tank) - or recently the lean tank when I changed up the dosing regime a while ago - more on that later, let’s start with the Shrimp tank.

Livestock

Cherry Shrimps of various colors; including Dream Blue Velvet, Sakura Red, Fire red, Bloody Mary, Green Jade Shrimp, Golden Back Yellow (countless, and countless interbred colors :lol: ).
Black Neon Tetras (10)
Cardinal Tetras (12)
Ember Tetras (12)
Oto’s (3)

The Oto's, Black Neons and Cardinals I’ve had since I put up the tank - I’ve lost a couple of black Neons and Cardinals over time - pretty sure to natural causes / old age. The cardinals and blacks are absolutely huge at this point. Cardinals I believe can get quite old (6-8 years) under ideal conditions whereas the Black Neons probably will get to be 4-5 y/o. The Embers I added about 1 1/2 year ago - they are small, but I think fully grown - they are very lively and curious. I got them at the same time as the initial batch of shrimps. The shrimps have been breeding so prolifically that it’s impossible to say now which shrimps was part of the original batch, but I do think I recognize a few. Cherry Shrimps are expected to live a couple of years. The Shrimps are so much fun!

Ramshorn snails (countless, but not overwhelming).

Those where introduced with plants I believe. Their shells can be quite beautiful and they never bothered me… They pick up the slack from the shrimps and seems to be reasonably well behaved with my plants except perhaps the pennyworth :) I occasionally see pond snails in there as well, but for some reason they never seem to get a foothold - a good thing anyway...

Food

The fishes I mainly feed with Omega flake-food, Bug Bites, frozen food (daphnia, mosquito larva) and some live food during the summer. The shrimps, Otos and snails get algae wafers, mineral- and protein sticks and sometimes thinly sliced and scalded cucumbers or lettuce (I think the scalded lettuce may have given the Shrimps a taste for my Pennyworth :) ).

Plants

My plants are mostly in the easy category and mostly grows slow. Most plants I can still identify in the tank with reasonable certainty. Although I am not 100% sure of all the ID’s - especially the Crypts, I know for sure they were bought under the designation listed below.

Cryptocoryne Wendtii Green
Cryptocoryne Undulatus ‘Red'
Cryptocoryne Retrospiralis
Cryptocoryne Balansae
Cryptocoryne Spiralis
Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia

I probably have a couple of other crypts in there that are unidentifiable at this stage. Crypts can be notoriously hard to identify. Overall, mine are growing slowly - some very slowly, but all seems relatively healthy. It’s always been a bit of a puzzle to me to figure out what keeps Crypt’s ticking. Some will settle in fairly quickly, start growing to a certain size and then essentially just grow new leaves, while old leaves are dying and just maintain their size with few occasional runners. Others would struggle from within days of being planted and eventually just die off for no obvious reason other than perhaps the shock for being transferred from one tank to another or merely moved around within the tank - they just don't like change I guess :)

Anubias Barteri
Anubias Barteri ‘Striped’
Anubias Congensis
Anubias Minima
Anubias Hastifolia
Anubias Nana
Anubias Jalapeno
Anubias Petite

Anubias has always been one of my favorite plants. Super easy to keep, hardy slow growers and come in a large variety. However, if they start to struggle due to lack of nutrients or excessive light they quickly become algae magnets! My Barteri’s and Nana’s are blooming occasionally (randomly) with flowers that last for a week to a couple of weeks or so - this is not something I've experienced much with past tanks so I must be doing something right.

1667255992971.png



Bucephalandra Achilles Green
Bucephalandra Achilles Black

The Buce's been very easy to keep for me. They grow slow but steady and occasionally flowering. Only needs an occasional trim.

Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum)

I love Frogbit! - they provide great shade for plants and coverage for livestock. Mine are thriving and they are a great gauge for overall nutrient health - they have unlimited access to CO2/O2 and light (relatively speaking) so those factors can be taken out of the equation when assessing theirs and general nutrient health in the tank. If kept successfully they will grow incredibly fast; I remove many fist-fulls every other week or so (see pic below before last harvest). They do suck up a lot of nutrients, so I try to factor that into my dosing. One thing I noticed is that if the roots grow long it's a sign that the plants may be struggling a bit for nutrients - not necessarily in deficit, just that they are putting more effort into growing roots for uptake than leaf-growth (I have that phenomenon in my other tank - the lean tank).

Duckweed

I have a love hate relationship with the Duckweed. At this point there are not a whole lotta love left to be honest… I like it as a gauge for nutrient health, but they just spread so damn fast and are very hard to control if kept with other floating plants such as Frogbit as they get so intertwined with every open space around the leaves of the Frogbit (see pic below). Often I have to scope up all the Frogbit and rinse off the duckweed from them in a sink under running water. Before putting the Frogbit back I remove as much duckweed as I can with a net. Quite a laborious process. They were dragged in with other plants that I bought. Rinse repeat... lesson learned!

Picture from the other day: Frogbit paradise or Duckweed hell ?

forgbit_duckweed.jpg


Brazilian pennywort

A great looking floating plant - one of the few floating plants you can actually enjoy through the front glass since many (or most) of the leaves on the stems will always be submerged. They are very versatile. They can be rooted or left floating in the tank. Initially I had them rooted, and they did quite well, but eventually decided to uproot them to see how they would do as floating plants and that really worked out as well. They grow really fast in a low-tech tank when kept floating (CO2 access I presume). I’ve noticed that my Ramshorn snails and pretty sure my adult Cherry shrimps munch of these plants making the edge of the leaves ragged with clear signs of predatory damage - I am not too worried about it yet!

Java Fern

Will grow like crazy if well kept. I don’t have a whole lot of Java Fern in this tank - all is attached to a piece of drift wood doing OK - I think the Ramshorn snails are munching on them as well. They need good nutrient flow to really flourish (and lots of potassium apprently). My other tank have one that almost covers 1/3rd off the tank - so I’ll spare the blurb about my Java Fern experiences for later.

Tall Narrowleaf Sagittaria

Had a lot of Narrowleafs in the past and they were beautiful, but at some point they started to die off - I don’t know why, everything else was doing fine. Whatever is left is doing OK and seems to be coming back slowly.

Crinum Calamistratum

Never really figured what the deal is with this plant. I have a couple way in the back of the tank tangled into one of my Amazons - not much growth but seems OK. I sort of imagined a dense area with these plants - never happened.

Bolbitis Heudelotii ‘Difformis’

I have those attached to roots. Mine are exceptionally slow growers, but seems pretty healthy and provide great shelter for shrimplets - almost like moss.

Amazon Sword

A mainstay for me. I don’t think I’ve had many (if any…) tanks without Amazon Swords - even when I did scarcely planted tanks with mostly large cichlids. The big one I have in this tank is probably outgrowing the tank. I frequently remove huge old leaves that are perfectly healthy, to give room for new leaves.

Dwarf Chain Sword

Never took off. There are a few left scattered throughout the tank thats been around from when I put up the tank.

Botanicals

I add Indian almond leaves on a regular basis - a couple of larges leaves per month. The shrimps love them when they start to decompose, it acidifies the water and leach all sort of good compounds with anti-fungal- anti-inflammatory- and anti-pathogen properties, flavonoids and a whole bunch of other compounds we otherwise won’t be getting into our tanks (including isovitexin and vitexin among others that are also found in Cannabis... that said, I do NOT recommend anyone to fire up a stoney :cigar: with almond leaves though, just saying...). I attribute the well being of my livestock in no small part to the regular use of botanicals. Yes, the tannins turns my water into a color that resembles very thin tea, but I got over it eventually - sometimes I do throw a clean bag of Seachem Purigen into one of the HOB’s for a week or so if I feel the tea is getting a bit too strong.

hardscape

4 pieces of Malaysian driftwood.

Substrate

Red CaribSea Eco-Complete (now called Eco-Planted). I’m unhappy with my choice of substrate just to make that clear. I thought it would grow on me, but I still don't think it look nearly as good as the alternatives I had in mind. At that time I wanted it red’ish. In the Eco-Complete ‘Red” there are just way too many grains that are not red at all or not red enough. The grain size (3-6 mm) is also quite a bit more coarse than I had anticipated. I didn’t go for an enriched substrate - I don't think that is necessary in a low-tech tank with slow growers - I see the point when setting up a new tank with tons of fast growers and CO2 injection; it's ideal for the serial scaper! Of course, any choice of substrate shouldn’t leach anything unanticipated, provide enough flow between grains for nutrient distribution around the root and provide a good environment for beneficial bacteria… I wonder what the ideal substrate for me might be… ~1-2 mm Coarse red'ish sand perhaps? yeah, that's probably what I am thinking ;)

Pictures

Here is a couple of pictures of the tank from today. As we all know, it's really hard to photograph low-light tanks to convey the mood, brightness, tones and color balance as we see it with our eyes, but I would say this is fairly accurate. This light intensity in this tank is really low.

As already mentioned, I am not an aquascaper... I tend to throw plants into my tanks pretty haphazardly with a total lack of guiding principles... sort of like how nature behaves... I mean, I have tall Crypts in the front and dwarf chains and Anubias petites in the back... :lol: ... that said, I do like the lush jungle'ish look of the tank.

FTS1.JPG

(Sorry about the reflection(s)).

Notice the lower right hand-side corner - this area hardly gets any light and still, whatever grows back there (including the Wendtii) is doing fine!


TSC.jpg

(My Embers are very curious - and notorious photo bombers ... much more outgoing than my Cardinals or Black Neons, that are getting somewhat skittish in their senior years).

Next journal post - coming soon - will be about what I do for maintenance, water parameters and fertilizer in this particular tank.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
Hi all,
Picture from the other day: Frogbit paradise or Duckweed hell ?
Both?
As already mentioned, I am not an aquascaper... I tend to throw plants into my tanks pretty haphazardly with a total lack of guiding principles... I mean, I have tall Crypts in the front and dwarf chains and Anubias petites in the back... :lol: ... that said, I do like the lush jungle'ish look of the tank.

FTS1.JPG

(Sorry about the reflection(s)).

Notice the lower right hand-side corner - this area hardly gets any light and still, whatever grows back there (including the Wendtii) is doing fine!
Perfect tank.

cheers Darrel
 
Tank 1 - aka the Shrimp tank - Maintenance, water parameters, fertilizer

This installment is going to be about my maintenance regime, water preparation and dosing - and a bunch of other stuff - for this particular tank - see above post #17 for for details about this tank. Most of what I write below applies to my other tank as well.

Maintenance

Daily

My lights come on around noon - my ramp-up starts at 11:30am and reached the preset level at noon. If I am home, I usually feed my fish the first time at 2pm (I mostly work from home). When I am not around, I use an Eheim food dispenser loaded with Bug Bites - the Eheim won't dose very consistently to put it mildly, but among the ones I’ve tried, this is the best for small granules - forget using the Eheim for flake-food - it’s close to impossible to adjust the dosing for flakes.
Fortunately I get to feed manually most of the time or have my wife doing it. I usually feed tiny quantities of whatever I am feeding that day and watch the fish eat for a couple of minutes and then add a bit more. I usually feed once again in the evening, but only a tiny bit (one feeding cycle). One day a week I don't feed at all. I feed the shrimp 2-3 times per week; cycling between algae wafers, mineral- and protein sticks with interspersed cucumber and lettuce. If the produce are not eaten up the day after as most common, I remove it to avoid polluting the water. It’s impossible for me not to the check temperature every day as the gauges are just in front of my eyes on the lit of the tanks, but it’s always a stable 23-24 C (~74 F). In addition I check the TDS a couple of times a week with my Hanna DiST 1 TDS meter which usually hovers around 100 ppm. (my TDS meter uses a 0.5 conversion factor, so 100 ppm correspond to 200 uS/cm).

Monthly

Once a month I clean the HOB filters. The mechanical filters (sponges) gets a rinse and squeeze under under hot water in the sink. The Seachem Matrix bags gets a clean in the water I drain from the tank - I know the filter media only accounts for a fraction of the beneficial bacteria that lives in the substrate, but I still try to be gentle with the bio filter media. I also clean the sponges on the Pat Mini’s under hot water - often I end up cleaning those every time I do a water change - the sponges are small and dense and sucks up a lot of detritus - I like these small filters a lot btw. I do a deep cleaning on all my filters - impeller etc. every 3-4 months unless I notice any obvious performance degradation. I use glass covers on my tanks so I clean those as well every 2-3 months or so.

Water Change

Before water change (WC)

Before draining the water, I turn off all filters (and heater) and do the plant trimming; remove any dying or struggling leaves or leaves that have grown too big and weed out the floating plants. If I occasionally notice any unseemly detritus buildup I try to remove it or at least stir it around gently with a fine net hoping the draining will catch it or eventually the internal filters when they come back on. I can’t safely vacuum in this tank regardless of how gentle I would be not to disturb the substrate. Not only because of plants density, but also because of the many shrimplets of various sizes.

My useless tap water

All of my city water runs through a household water softener (the city water is very hard here at 20-22 GH). The only by-pass we have is for the taps outside the house which are shut off 5-6 mo/year due to the arctic Minnesota winters. The softener uses potassium chloride (KCL ) for ion exchange (most households in the US uses cheaper NaCl) that traps the Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg) and some other minerals. The softener alleviate lime and scale buildup in the pipes and allow you to use less detergent and soap. The downside is that the water taste less than ideal and you have to make sure you get enough Ca/Mg/minerals etc. through your diet as drinking the tap water wont give you any of that… I wonder how many are aware of that(?). I am not 100% sure, but I believe in Europe its mandated to have a by-pass on the kitchen/drinking/food prep tap - smart! Our tap water comes out at “zero” GH as expected and a TDS currently around 275 ppm - not surprisingly the water is very high on Potassium (K) no one in our household suffers from Potassium deficiency :) but it's likely better for us than the high levels of Sodium we would get if using NaCl.

With my current tanks I’ve always used an RODI system (Reverse Osmosis Deionizer system) - I am using the RO Buddie 100 GPD (380L per day) with the optional Deionizer. Way in the past I would mix the RODI water with the tap water to reach my desired TDS and KH and to get rid of the excessive K (or Sodium for quite a while before switching to KCL) and remineralize from there. I eventually decided to lower my WC amount and do 100% RODI water instead. It allows me to get my water exactly the way I want it with very little left to chance of collateral damage from seasonal variation and compounds that may be in the tap water. For instance, with Copper (Cu) our city water report from 2021 states that 90% of households tested below 0.37 ppm, and none tested "high", high is presumably 80% of the EPA limit or higher. So the only thing I can safely say is that my tap water Cu level is below 1.0 ppm (which is 80% of the EPA limit of 1.3 ppm). Either way, I wouldn't consider my tap water to be suitable for my invertebrates (Snails and Shrimps) - as a matter of fact, it’s potentially lethal. And of course, the water report only gives a snapshot of what is going on at the time of measurement, so relying on say the base Nitrate levels from the tap water and dose on top of that can be problematic. I know for instance that our water plant is mixing a varying degrees of surface water from lakes and ground water throughout the year so parameters are bound to vary quite a bit. I wish I had access to a stable and superb source of tap water or rain-water that I could just use straight up with whatever minerals I would need to add, instead of the time-consuming and wasteful RODI water (more than 90% of the water that runs through the RODI unit goes to waste! - that's a terrible waste of a natural resource ).

Water change amount and frequency

Since this been a fully matured, grown-in tank for a long time now, I started to wonder at some point if it would make sense to tweak the water change amount and possibly frequency - if I could do this without harm it would be less of a waste and work - as noted above. I do WC’s mainly to get rid of waste, algae spores, pathogens and of course to replenish fertilizers and minerals. In the ideal world I would have an automated system that continuously would feed clean, perfectly remineralized water into my tanks. I don’t think there is any such thing as too much water changes as long as we replenish minerals and fertilizers to keep water parameters stable. My world is not ideal however, so instead I am making my periodical WC water in our laundry room using a very wasteful RODI system and haul 20 L (5.5 US Gl.) buckets through the house when I do my water changes :inpain:

I didn’t seriously start to tweak my WC amount/frequency until quite recently. In the past I usually did a bit over 50% per week. When I started tweaking it, I slowly dialed it down to see the impact of gradually going from over 50% to ~35% weekly (its one less bucket and likely over 200 L of drinking water saved) and when that seemed to be sustainable over several months, I then started to tweak the days in-between WC’s by letting it run to 11-12 days and this is essentially how the tank has been running for the past 4 months or so. It’s not that I have softened up on the importance of regular WC’s. I am still a strong believer in frequent large WC’s on new immature tanks especially and tanks with a high metabolic rate - be it from a high stocking level vs. plant mass or CO2. It’s a tricky topic when asked, and not knowing all the subtle details in-depth, I would always default to at least 50% weekly. Over the spring/early summer I had an almost 5 week run without water changes and very inconsistent dosing due to traveling etc. - it was obviously not ideal for this tank (or the other tank). The TDS spiked to well over 150 ppm and the tank started to show signs of neglect - definitely waste buildup, but nothing a couple of frequent WC’s, filter cleanings and a big trim couldn’t fix. Healthy mature tanks have a certain resilience it seems.

Water preparation

I usually make the RO water a day before the WC to let the water age; to degas any excess CO2 and to make sure it reaches an appropriate temperature. Before I started doing the aging I would just throw in a powerful heater and a powerhead and wait for the water to heat up. Since we keep that part of the house at 22-23 C pretty much all year around (heated in the winter - A/C in the summer) and the laundry room is often a bit warmer than the rest of the house due to the heat dissipation from washer/dryer etc. , my WC water and tank water differs no more than 1-2 C (so with ~35% WC the temperature drop in the tank is no more than a quarter degree Celsius or so). Usually an hour or so before I add the water to the tank I transfer it from the plastic drum to the buckets and do the remineralization and the fertilizer in the 20 L buckets and stir it up a bit to make sure everything is dissolved.

Fertilizer and Remineralization approach

Micro/Trace dosing

For traces in this tank I currently use NilocG Plantex / CSM+B (see the trace spec below). I make it in batches of 750 ml. with RODI water added ~30g of Plantex, 0.3g Ascorbic Acid, 0.3g of Potassium Sorbate. I shake it well until everything is dissolved and there is no residue at the bottom (takes quite a while) and store it in a dark place. The bottle lasts for several months (4-5 months or so). Now, one problem with these dry trace mixes is that I really can’t be 100% sure I get the right blend when I make the batch. When I look at the glass jar I transferred it to, it’s pretty obvious that the various elements don’t quite mix in proper quantities (likely because of weight and granule size) - of course, the more grams I mix in my bottle the higher the probability I get everything in the specified quantities. I didn’t think of this before @Happi pointed that out and recommended to use separate elements that can be mixed more accurately in a batching bottle - and it would also allow me to tweak the ratios between the trace elements - a thing we all surely are doing by now, no? ;) ... I will soon begin mixing my own traces - wanted to do that for a while - just didn't have time to dive in.

I target ~0.7 ppm of Fe for the whole (150L) tank for the duration in between WC’s - split in two equal sized doses. I usually add the Micros a day after my WC or at least several hours later in order to avoid any interaction with the NPK dosing and then again after 5-6 days. I am not super consistent with my micro dosing… sometimes - more often than I care to admit - it just ends up being the dose I add after the WC. I actually got a really cool Kamoer X1Pro2 automatic doser that I had running for a bit, but my wife started nagging about the clutter around the tank with the pump, bottle and stuff… especially when she realized its a gadget that saves me like 5 seconds of attention twice a week 🤓… so anyway, I decided to take it down instead of asking for a divorce :lol: (just kidding, I love my wife... and she actually encouraged me to get back into the hobby... bought me George's book for Christmas... I mean... what's not to love? 🥰 ). I also try to remember to turn off the UV filter if it happens to be on when I dose, in order to avoid breaking down the chelates - that’s also something I often forget.

Macros dosing - Mineral and NPK

I only dose minerals and macro fertilizers (NPK) once with each water change. I always did the so-called front loading (or at least, I can't remember when I didn’t…) of everything that I guesstimate the tank will need in-between WC’s and so far its been working well. I started with ridiculous amounts of NPK back in the day, but have slowly dialed it down to quantities that are far more reasonable. I think the front loading approach have a couple of additional upsides - besides the obvious, that you only have to remember to dose ones when you do WC. You can optionally select compounds that gives you a blend of everything to reach your targets. For instance I use use Mg(NO3) to get some Mg and all the NO3/N I need and K2CO3 for K and “CO3”.

I measure out the salts on a microgram weight. Sometimes its a bit more and sometimes a bit less, but I try to keep the weight within +/- 10% of my targets. The TDS won't quite add up to the sum of the ppm’s in each compound - as the ionic charge or conductivity (what the TDS meter actually measures) vary among the elements, but I can at least use my TDS meter to make sure I get the dosing reasonably right (except perhaps for the KH2PO4 which is there in a tiny amount). The TDS in my WC water is usually in the lower 90'ties ppm. Before I acquired a TDS meter (was a gift from my wife), I made some monumental and stupid mistakes with my dosing and water preparation. When I started measuring I had an epic TDS in the 1500 ppm range (yes, 1500… it was before I had shrimps in the tank btw.)… as it turned out it was in part because I got the measurements completely wrong on some of the compounds but more so because I used Acid buffers and Alkaline buffers to reach some “magical” pH and KH values that I thought at the time was important…bunk! - we live and learn... hey, but I read it on the internet! :lol:

How I approximate my dosing

Something that is often glossed over when discussing dosing is uptake and how to ensure we don't run dry on fertilizer or completely unnecessarily "overdose"… I know there are plenty of good sources out there on dosing that works - they are mostly empirical results that appears to work, as far as I can tell, and thats fine. I am not pretending to rush in with anything new here. A work habit of mine is that I like to build an intuition for a topic on my own terms in addition to what I can pick up in journals, papers and my own research - a very common approach I guess. With my dosing I use a simple model that allows me bounce numbers around to get a better sense of my dosing strategy - without it just being “I dose x ppm of y because it works - move along, nothing to see here”. I obviously do not know what the uptake is in my tank (that would require a water analysis on a regular basis with sophisticated lab equipment) and while I don’t see much drift in terms of TDS or GH (Ca/Mg stays very stable) when keeping up maintenance, the only way I can really tell if my plants are starving or struggling is to watch and observe and correct if I see any deficiency symptoms, such as if new or younger leaves are not doing well or signs of algae. However, nothing really tells me if my dosing is over the top… Unfortunately, there are not a whole lot of data points (that I am aware of) that gives a clue on uptake so I have to guess, but this can be aided with some easy math. If I can make a qualified guess on the uptake (trial and error, experience, ask more experienced hobbyist) and without trying to account for variation in plant mass it’s fairly easy to roughly estimate the equilibrium for the individual NPK (or Ca/Mg or whatever), and give me a ballpark idea how much to dose so I don't get into trouble and also not induce too much fluctuation . The equilibrium basically means that we find the same amount of a given compound immediately before each water change - I sort of think of the equilibrium value as a buffer. Lets take a look:

D: The dosing amount in the WC water
U: Guessed ppm uptake (negative ppm)
P: Percentage of water changed (with D amount added to the WC water)
E: Point of equilibrium ppm.

E = U / P - U + D

For instance, if we dose 7 ppm of Potassium and the uptake between WC’s is -2 ppm and you change 40% (40/100) water. The eventual point of equilibrium after a number of water changes will then be E = (-2 / 0.4) - -2 + 7 = 4 ppm.

We never want E to reach zero of course (and negative E is nonsensical) — that’s where deficiency definitely will kick in (likely before) as our tank will run out of the fertilizer compound before the next WC.

For the not-so-math-inclined reader, its easy to show that the above equation yield the value of the equilibrium (E):

Let E be the starting point of the ppm or, as in this example, 7 ppm of Potassium.

E = D * P + (E + U) * (1.0 - P)

WC 1: 5.80 = 7.0 * 0.4 + (7.00 + -2.0) * (1.0 - 0.40)
WC 2: 5.08 = 7.0 * 0.4 + (5.80 + -2.0) * (1.0 - 0.40)
WC 3: 4.65 = 7.0 * 0.4 + (5.08 + -2.0) * (1.0 - 0.40)
….
….
WC 13: 4.00 = 7.0 * 0.4 + (4.01 + -2.0) * (1.0 - 0.40) <== Equlibrium!
WC 14: 4.00 = 7.0 * 0.4 + (4.00 + -2.0) * (1.0 - 0.40)


So after 13 periodical water changes E will no longer change and the equilibrium is reached. A value of 4 ppm K, provided the uptake is in the ballpark, is not a terrible amount as a buffer for growth, slipping WC’s etc.

Let’s say we run a full EI tank and do 70% weekly WC and are dosing 30 ppm of NO3 and the uptake is 20 ppm or 4.5 ppm of N - which is quite a lot even for a densely planted high-tech tank.

E = (-20 / 0.7 - -20 + 30) = ~21 ppm.

To me, that looks like a lot of NO3 just sitting there as a buffer week after week…

Anyway, I will dive a little deeper into this in a future journal post :)

My dosing numbers (NPK/Ca/Mg)

As mentioned, I have been experimenting with various dry salts to simplify my dosing and reduce TDS for a while and this is the recipe I am currently using for this tank:

CaSO4:
27 ppm of Ca
22 ppm of S

MgSO4:
6 ppm of Mg
8 ppm of S

Mg(NO3)2:
2 ppm of Mg
10 ppm of NO3
2.3 ppm of N

KH2PO4:
4 ppm of PO4
1.3 ppm of P
1.6 ppm of K

K2CO3:
10 ppm of K
0.75 KH

(numbers rounded as appropriate)

Thats it... 5 different compounds that can be bought cheaply and will last me an eternity. I have all the compounds in glass jars and it literally takes me a couple of minutes to weight out and do the mixing.

So my NPK targets for my WC water is:

2.3 ppm of N
1.3 ppm of P
11.6 ppm of K

GH is ~5.5 or (27 Ca / 7.14) + (6+2) Mg / 4.34 = (3.64 +1.84) = 5.62.

KH is 0.75 as noted above. I really just aim for a low, but non-zero KH that also provide me with a decent amount of Potassium from the K2CO3 - lots of natural tropical soft-water ways hardly have any carbonates (CO3) but always some it seems…. And I add it to have at least some buffering capacity as well. I am not a bio-chemist, and the CO3 interaction, in terms of what it means for our tank environment is still a bit fuzzy to me.

pH. With my low KH thus low resistance to pH change - it’s easy for me to acidify my water using botanicals. Low pH carries a number of advantages including easier uptake for the plants, lower/slower precipitation of chelates etc. and again, resembles the natural habitats of my livestock. Every time I measure it sits quite comfortably between 6.4-6.8 I usually say my pH is ~6.5 - It’s probably been months since I measured my pH to be honest so I don’t exactly know what it is currently.

Ca:Mg ratio ~3.4:1 I am not sure how much the Ca/Mg ratio really matters. I need enough of both for the sake of the shrimps to support their molt and exoskeleton. 27 ppm of Ca and 8 ppm of Mg seems to be good numbers for the shrimps (never seen a bad molt among my adult shrimps) and the rest of my livestock and plants. The numbers are definitely not cut in stone… some shrimp species have a different tolerance level and even some RCS keepers run their tanks at quite a bit lower Ca/Mg levels than me, but make up for it with a diet heavier in minerals.

I came from much higher NPK numbers in the past and have been dialing this down slowly over a long duration of time. This recipe worked well when I did weekly 50% WC’s and the tank seems to do just as well doing 35% each 12 days. To me the important part of not using more fertilizer than necessary is for the sake of my livestock; keeping the TDS low will reduce osmotic pressure/stress and more resemble the livestocks natural habitats - call me a hopeless dreamer, but I think that an overall low TDS is an important factor for the well-being of my livestock - perhaps more important than say specific finely tuned GH or pH levels. Of course it matters a great deal as well what makes up the TDS. I still have a hard time believing that 30 ppm of S from my CaSO4/MgSO4 (or 50 ppm from Cl if I’d use CaCl2) is doing my livestock any good.

I wish I didn’t have to take on 30 ppm of Sulfate from the CaSO4 and MgSO4, but there seem to be no other way around this at the moment (its much worse with CaCl2 which is often advised, where I would have to take on 50 ppm of Cl instead of 22 ppm of S to reach the same 27 ppm of Ca). Dolomite (CaMgCO3) is on my list to try and may be an option worth considering at the expense of some KH increase - I will have to find time to experiment with it - and will put it in this journal if I get around to it. I have tried with Ca Gluconate and Mg Gluconate. Gluconate is an organic compound made from aerobic fermentation of sugar. Especially the high dose of Ca Gluconate needed to reach 27 ppm of Ca appears to cause a very undesired clouding of the water - possibly due to bacterial bloom or some unknown (to me) chemical reaction. I have tried to find a ratio between CaSO4 and Ca Gluconate where it didn’t cause problems, but the ratio ended up being so high (6 CaSO4 : 1 Ca Gluconate) that it wasn’t worth the extra effort. I have noticed some fertilizer products use Gluconate such as Seachem Iron, but with the tiny amounts needed to reach 0.5-1.0 ppm of Iron, the Gluconate will probably not cause any issues at all and Fe Gluconate is supposedly superior to chelated Fe - yet, I have actually seen some postings on other forums from people complaining about cloudy water after using Seachem Iron - anecdotal, for sure.

Is it lean?

If I go by the weekly targeting that we usually refer to and only dose this with my WC water every 12 day and roughly equate that to weekly amounts of NPK and traces it would be:

Conversion factor to weekly equivalent: k = 7 / 12 = 0.583

Macros / NPK

N 2.3 x k = 1.35 ppm
P 1.3 x k = 0.76 ppm
K 12 x k = 7 ppm

Micros / traces

Fe 0.7 x k = 0.4 ppm
Mn 0.2 x k = 0.11 ppm
Zn 0.04 x k = 0.023 ppm
B 0.08 x k = 0.047 ppm
Cu 0.01 x k = 0.00583 ppm
Mo 0.006 x k = 0.0035 ppm

With the exception of Potassium (K), Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg), I tend to think of this dosing scheme as pretty lean.

Could I go lower with my “weekly” dosing? Very likely and perhaps I will tweak it a bit... But I need a certain amount of GH (Ca & Mg) to make this work for the Shrimps as mentioned - and since the CaSO4 and MgSO4 i am using for now makes up for about 70% of the TDS in my WC water (when measured), there is not much of a point in trying to squeeze these NPK numbers even further without making other changes, and I obviously don't want to hit some limit where the tank starts tethering on the edge of deficiency symptoms.

If I keep this tank around 100 ppm (it roughly correspond to an EC of 200 uS/cm - my Hanna meter uses a conversion factor of 0.5) that’s still higher than what is measured in many natural water ways. In the extreme end 7-8 uS/cm is routinely measured in Rio Negro - thats probably a non-starter for most plants anyway with no nutrients except for the soil which is also extremely poor. However, many river tributaries in the Amazon river basin where many of our ornamental soft water fish are found measures anywhere from 15 uS/cm (blackwater) to 150 uS/cm (in Juruá for instance) which roughly correspond to a range of 7-75 ppm. So being around 100 ppm is still quite a bit higher, but not terribly so I guess.

That's it! - I don't think I left out anything important about what I am doing. If anyone think otherwise or need me to elaborate let me know :)

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
Hi @MichaelJ

Unless I'm mistaken, you haven't mentioned any figures from your ORP meter. And, does your tank ever develop algae of any kind and/or cyanobacteria?

JPC
 
Hi @MichaelJ

Unless I'm mistaken, you haven't mentioned any figures from your ORP meter.

Hi @jaypeecee,

You are right. There are a number of reasons I didn't touch on the Oxygen Reduction Potential (ORP). Its a topic I haven't gained enough practical experience with to speak to relative to my tanks. I did buy the MW500 about 8 months ago, as you know and have discussed privately. The many times I have tested, it comes out around 300 mV. (mostly a bit lower). It suggests this particular tank have a rather weak ability to break down waste etc. While that may be so, the tank (plants and livestock) seems to be doing very well regardless, so I just don't see a meaningful correlation between what the measurement tells me and what I observe in the tank - unlike say TDS where a big spike in TDS (not attributed to dosing or remineralization mistakes) seems to really correlate well with visible signs of waste buildup / neglect as mentioned above. ORP is a difficult and subtle topic. I do not doubt it is a super relevant measure for natural waterway such as lakes and rivers, but might be less so for our aquariums - I do not know. I am still in learning-mode in this one.

And, does your tank ever develop algae of any kind and/or cyanobacteria?
Its been a very, very long time since I've had any unwanted algae build-up in this tank (not since it was still somewhat immature) - I always say that I have no algae to speak of - it essentially means that I don't have any visible algae - to my eyes at least, but of course they are always there and an integral part of our aquariums. It is just that they never get to be an issue in either of my tanks. I think the main reason for that is:

1) Stability (no excess fluctuation in water parameters and nutrients levels)
2) Proper maintenance such as WC's, trimming, removal of detritus, algae spores etc.
3) Appropriate/balanced light levels relative to available nutrients (including CO2)
4) Excellent nutrient distribution (flow)
5) Proper levels of beneficial bacteria
6) Proper levels of dosed nutrients (no starving or struggling plants)
7) Lots of plants!

As long as those factors are accounted for I think algae will become a non-issue... A lot of this comes with the maturity of the tank. In a new tank, its hard to impose stability, proper levels of nutrients, proper levels of bacteria etc. with plants still adapting and growing in - it comes over time. That's why new setups often see diatoms, algae outbreaks including BGA (Cyano) etc.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
Proper levels of beneficial bacteria...
Hi @MichaelJ

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. Much food for thought. It seems that you have 'tuned' your tank optimally and are reaping the rewards. Well done! May I ask what you mean by "proper levels of beneficial bacteria"? I assume that you are referring to nitrifying bacteria but, perhaps, you are also including heterotrophs?

As for ORP/Redox, I must be one of the few UK aquarists who have derived benefit from using this measurement. I am aware that it is used not only by marine fishkeepers but also by Koi enthusiasts.

JPC
 
Hi @jaypeecee.

Hi @MichaelJ

Thanks for your comprehensive reply. Much food for thought. It seems that you have 'tuned' your tank optimally and are reaping the rewards. Well done!

Thank you! I could not have done it without all the insightful posts (yours included) that I've read over the years - even way before I signed up here on UKAPS!

May I ask what you mean by "proper levels of beneficial bacteria"? I assume that you are referring to nitrifying bacteria but, perhaps, you are also including heterotrophs?
Yes, that was a vague blanket statement without going into much details; I am assuming all beneficial bacteria including nitrifying bacteria - chemolithotrophic organisms - and heterotrophs to the extent they are beneficial to my aquatic environment :)
As for ORP/Redox, I must be one of the few UK aquarists who have derived benefit from using this measurement. I am aware that it is used not only by marine fishkeepers but also by Koi enthusiasts.
You might be. There are definitely not a lot here that speak much about ORP, but keep up the work and accumulation of practical experience - the hobby needs it.

Cheers,
Michael
 
Last edited:
Back
Top