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Setting up a “higher” tech planted tank

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26 Oct 2008
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Quote from article Setting up a “higher” tech planted tank.

Do change lots of water. At first replace 50% every day for a few days, then every other day. After a couple of weeks you can slow this down as long as you don’t see any algae (other than a few green spots on the glass – this is perfectly normal!) or dirt building up. It is important to keep up large water changes every week. With the recommended EI fertilisation you need to do 50% water changes every week on this tank. These will remove any organic wastes building up in the water as well as keeping the tank looking sparkling!

Can somebody explain the reasons for doing this activity other than stated above: My thoughts are by removing spend water and adding fresh water would have an adverse affect on the quantities of bacteria that are within the filter ie you are weakening / remove or killing off the bacteria that is present within the filter media or does it work the other way by giving the existing bacteria a kick up the side in producing more to replace what has been removed, weakened or killed off by the water change.

Regards

Paul.
 
Hi Paul,
nice to meet you and the wife on monday,
water changes can depend on what type of substrate you use at start up,AdA soils can have amonia spikes so more water changes will help with that,but with most substrates you dont need to do water changes every day,when i used eco-complet i jsut did water changes once a week,it would help if you did maybe two a week,but in my opinion once is enough most of the time,i certainly wouldnt do one every day,
regards john.
 
Large initial water changes perform a number of functions when a tank is newly set up, not just removing ammonia from the AS substrate.

Firstly it means you can syphon out and remove any waste or algae that may start up in the tank.

Secondly it will remove any algae spores floating in the water.

Thirdly it will remove any ammonia generated by the plants, fish or anything else.

Do you need to them daily? Probably not, but you won't do any harm in doing them either and the whole point of this article was to help people set up a tank without as few problems as possible and large water changes at the start will help that, especially with AS as a substrate.

BTW the bacteria in the filter live attached to the filter media and won't be affected unless you put large amounts of chlorinated water into the filter.
 
John, Arron and Ed

I had posted a thread and a considerable quantity of people have reviewed this -

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5689&start=0

Perhaps its me - I cannot get it into my head, i am still thinking that by altering the surroundings of the bacteria must have some affect on these little blitters.

Regards
paul

N.B John nice to have met you on Monday @TGM, I have reviewed you posting reagrding your tank - it looks grt, i wish mine looked like that - its a credit to you.

N.B - 2 just carry out a 95% water change. the remain 5% of water was mixed in the substrate.
 
Flyfisherman said:
John, Arron and Ed

I had posted a thread and a considerable quantity of people have reviewed this -

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5689&start=0

Perhaps its me - I cannot get it into my head, i am still thinking that by altering the surroundings of the bacteria must have some affect on these little blitters.

Regards
paul

N.B John nice to have met you on Monday @TGM, I have reviewed you posting reagrding your tank - it looks grt, i wish mine looked like that - its a credit to you.

the affects are minimal, you probably wont even notice them. you may kill a few, but there are millions of bacteria which are fully cpable of carrying out their job, and they are quick at multiplying if anything does go wrong. :)
 
Thx arron

to help /assist in the process can i add some Waterlife Bacterlife "Bacteria feed". I add 25mls every week to my bigger tank after my water change.

Regards

Paul.
 
Paul, you don't really need any of this. if you're getting it for free then by all means but why spend money to buy bacteria? You cannot stop bacteria from growing in the tank, or in your house or anywhere else for that matter because they are so robust and they multiply so quickly. All you have to do is look at the cleaning product aisle of your local Tesco and you can see how many billions of pounds are spent trying to kill bacteria. Bacteria have killed more people on the planet than all the wars that have ever broken out. Bacteria almost wiped out the entire European continent in the middle ages. The measly pittance of bacteria in those silly little vials cannot possibly add substantially to bacterial population already in the tank. It is quite literally a spit in the ocean by comparison.

Bacteria populate every square millimeter of every surface of the tank, plants, rocks, filter and substrate and they number billions of times more collectively on these surfaces than what is suspended in the water column alone. Even if you kill most of them today, their populations will recover by next week, such is their resiliency and tenacity. The best thing you can do for bacteria is to have healthy plants because it's the plants that feed the bacteria with carbohydrates, Nitrogen and Phosphorous and it the plants which boost their populations by oxygenating the water and the sediment, not "BacterFeed" or whatever. Plants have a much more substantial effect on the health and effectiveness than anything else we can do. When plant health fails then the bacteria we and they depend on to detoxify the tank also fail. Focus on maximizing plant health and they in turn will take care of the tank without the need for any dedicated bacteria products, which simply pale in comparison.

Cheers,
 
Thx matey

I think and recommend that they change your title to "Super Moderator" what do you think :?:

Regards
paul
 
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