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Journal The Green Dream _ My Cryptocoryne infested riparium

Hi all,
Walt1908 said:
Good reads but quite hard for non english speakers cause of the terms.
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Apologies for that. There is some discussion in <"Confusion concerning 0dKH and nitrification">, but again not very user friendly.
Walt1908 said:
Always thought kalium would increase slightly the KH of the water.
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We are in the German language and the "K"s but "Karbonate", not "Kalium". Potassium (K) is an alkali metal, but whether a salt is basic, neutral or acidic depends on the compounds that it originated from.

cheers Darrel
 
Hi Darrel, no need to apologize ;)

Thats one of the reasons i came here, to learn. About the kalium/carbonate i knew. The reason i thought that when adding kalium the hardness of our water increased was because of my experiences in the past.

Its hard stuff and what i do nowadays is⁹ basically from experience. Im a 50 yr old guy trying to do his best for his fish and plants ;)
 
Walt1908 said:
Hi Darrel, no need to apologize ;)
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I only speak English, and I'm not even very good at that.
Walt1908 said:
he reason i thought that when adding kalium the hardness of our water increased was because of my experiences in the past.
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A lot of potassium compounds will be bases, it really depends on the conjugate base and acid.
Walt1908 said:
Its hard stuff and what i do nowadays is⁹ basically from experience. Im a 50 yr old guy trying to do his best for his fish and plants
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I know exactly what you mean, I'm not very good at chemistry, despite having science degrees. I'm also not very good at fish keeping, despite having been a fish keeper for a long time etc.

Cheers Darrel
 
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Good morning Darrel.

I think you are a bit to modest over yourself ;) For me the nutriënts are what i know from experience.

If i have this problem in the tank i add (or cut down) this. This because i 'know' that it helps me with the problem with some basic knowhow. However, the excact chemistry behind it leaves me somewhat in the dark.

For example.
I need to drink water or else i get dehydrated. When i get this my symptoms could be a headache, dry mouth etc. My solution, drink water.
Why or what may be the exact chemical cause of my headache i don't know. Don't really care either since its beyond my interest.

My fish come first, second my plants. All that is left is keeping the algae to a minimum. Sure i keep track on my micros and macros so they stay way at the safe side.
 
Hi all,
Walt1908 said:
This because i 'know' that it helps me with the problem with some basic knowhow. However, the excact chemistry behind it leaves me somewhat in the dark.
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I honestly don't <"think it matters">.
dw1305 said:
...... I think of it a bit like driving a car, you can be an entirely competent driver without understanding the software architecture of the Engine Management System and if you do understand it? It doesn't make you a better driver. .......
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From a purely personal point of view one of the reasons I want to <"understand the chemistry"> is that it allows me to answer questions about the <"Duckweed Index">, <"fertilisers">, <"cycling and nitrification"> etc. with accuracy and without <"misleading any-one">.
Walt1908 said:
I need to drink water or else i get dehydrated. When i get this my symptoms could be a headache, dry mouth etc. My solution, drink water.
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That is it really, <"KISS solutions"> are nearly always the answer.
Walt1908 said:
My fish come first, second my plants.
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I'm a <"leaner doser">, I'm not interested in <"optimal growth"> or difficult plants. <"I don't use CO2"> etc.

The original rationale for the <"Duckweed Index"> was very much that plants (and plant / microbe biofiltration) could produce high quality water and that makes fish keeping <"a lot easier"> and more enjoyable.

cheers Darrel
 
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To make things even more interesting, i obviously have dozens of land plants sucking up the fertz with their roots.

So just dosing from any fertz calculator doesnt work for me...

Indeed, keep it stupid simple. Look at the aquariumplants and give them what they need 😊
 
Hi all,
Walt1908 said:
Look at the aquarium plants and give them what they need
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Exactly the same for me, the <"the coffee not the froth" >and that has <"cut straight to the chase"> and is also a perfect summary of the <"Duckweed Index">.
dw1305 said:
..... Just stop testing and watch the fish and plants. Your eyes will tell you more then any test kit. If you want to think of it in a more <"scientific manner">? You are conducting <"a bioassay"> and using <"Bayesian probability">. ......
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cheers Darrel
 
This morning i added aprox 7liters of osmose water in my aquarium. Half a 15l jerrycan. This is the amount i can produce in one hour.

Just checked my kh and its a low kh10. My ph problem by co2 seems no more of a problem. Ill keep up this regime and see how it goes from there.

Few weeks ago i upped my kh2po4, tenso and profito all with 1ml daily.
I had a few tufs of bba and some dots gsa on my windows and some leaves. Probably because i installed a month ago an extra twinstar g-line.

Bba dissapeared and after removing the affected gsa parts im not seeing the stuff coming back.

If it gets back anyway ill up my kh2po4 some more. But only in a few weeks since i am now 'busy' with my kh and i want to know what my plants are doing first...
 
Since i am in between jobs atm i am now having some extra time on my hands to finally finish my work at the waterfall in the left corner. Today the work is done so some time for some pics :)

Since under the new waterfall my heater is located between some rocks the waterfall has to be easy to remove.

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First tests were ok but many water from the small pump was lost because the connection between the background of the riparium and the waterfall was lousy ofcourse.

With special aquarium sealant i made a 'camouflaged' strip that i glued in the corner. The strip goes over the back of the waterfall so now there is a smooth connection..
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Today i installed the pump back and brought back the terrestial plants that i had in that corner.
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I think the result is cool. Its not a strong waterfall cause its supposed to make a minimum of sound but i like it a lot.
 
jellybean said:
Do you have any build photos? I’d love to see how you built up the part above the water. Really beautiful tank.
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I have lots of building pics., thanks for the interest! Any particular part of the process?
 
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