Problems and Advise...Thanks

[ranmasatome]

Hi, below is the stats of my tank....pls advise..Thank you.

Beginners Info Sheet
++++++++++++++++++

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 2x1x1 (Feet)
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) : 54 watts
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : 3 FL (each 18w)
No. of Hours your light is on: 12
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 5 bubbles per 2 secs
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : External tank with solenoid
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor): internal reactor W one ball
Substrate Used : Got from Teo..the brown bags..is this lapis?
How Thick is your base fert : 2cm
How thick is your gravel : 3cm
Liquid Fertilizers Used : LGA only
Frequency of fertilization : 2ml Once a week during 30-50% water changes
Tank Temperature : 26 celcius
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : Canister Eheim Ecco
Filter media used : Biofilter/wool/MR. Aqua filter media/ porus balls??
How long has your tank been set up : Since October 2004 (this year)


Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
---------------------------------------

Carbonate Hardness (kh): 5
Total Hardness (gH): less than 6 for sure
PH : 6.8-7.2 (fluctuates..SUPER VERY rarely 6.8. more often than not its 7-7.2)
NH4 (ppm): 0
NO2 (ppm): 0?? i know its super low
NO3 (ppm): 1-2?? also super low
PO4 (ppm): ??
Fe (ppm)?

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)
------------------------------
Fauna
12 old cardinal tetras
5 green cardinals
12 mixed mosquito rasboras
2 SAEs
2 Otos
2 Zebra snails
10-20 assorted shrimps (malayan, mosquito, bee)

Flora
3 bushy stalks Eusteralis stellata
5-6 stalks Didiplis diandra
6-7 stalks Hottonia palustris
1 Cladophora aegagrophila
1 Echinodorus parviflorus
small portion (test grd) Hemianthus callitrichoides ''Cuba''
1/3 of forground Glossostigma elantinoides
1/4 forground Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
small bunch Micranthemum micranthemoides
1 Anubias nana 'petite'?
4 stalks Proserpinaca palustris
1 Some plant...don't know name...
1 water lily

Describe your problem :
My problems...lol...don't know if i can fit..lol...okay...lets do this systematically...

1) Even at 5 bubbles per 2 secs...my Ph is still retardedly high at 7!! i've since moved the rainbar outlet from mid to bottom of tank and will wait 2-3 days to see if the pH drops...otherwise i really don't know what to do...is it the Mr Aqua filter media?? should i get and external reactor instead?? REALLY have to settle this issue first....damn headache..

2) The new leaves coming from my plants seem to be more yellow than the old present ones...but they stay that way and develop into old leaves that way...the plants are growing but very slowly....the only thing that is growing fast is the glosso and water lily (with yellowish leaves of course)...even the E.parviflorus is slow...but all plants are living..no melts or anything like that...occasional loss of leaves from the E.stellata... and MM..and mermaid weed. also nanas has spot algae on it...the glass used to have but since the snails came...they dissappeared..

3) Dosing only LGA once a week...okay....i know this is probably not enough...so i would like to know if i should get the entire lushgrow set (should have enough od eveything my plant needs i presume) or get some counter types...i know my critter load is high but still my NO3 is low like hell....i need micro as well...but don't really know which to combine with LGA.

4)Whatever other suggestions you guys have...Thanks

Thanks for the advise...looking to learn more about ferts and stuff....used to only make low maintainence tanks and never ever used ferts for those b4..lol :P ..Thanks guys.

Jus
P.s. oh by the way here are some pics...for what i'm talking about..took pics of the critters but you can see the plants as well..still quite sparse the tank...

http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...=682983sae.jpg
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...75whiptail.jpg
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...nbeeshrimp.jpg
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...tankright2.jpg
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...0tankright.jpg
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...toonglosso.jpg

[ranmasatome]

sorry 2 links didn't show up....

http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...0tankright.jpg
http://www.uploadyourimages.com/view...toonglosso.jpg

[PeterGwee]

[quote:888801e1="ranmasatome"]1) Even at 5 bubbles per 2 secs...my Ph is still retardedly high at 7!! i've since moved the rainbar outlet from mid to bottom of tank and will wait 2-3 days to see if the pH drops...otherwise i really don't know what to do...is it the Mr Aqua filter media?? should i get and external reactor instead?? REALLY have to settle this issue first....damn headache.. [/quote:888801e1]

Did you dose any stuff for the KH? Is your KH stable? Personally, I don't like coral chips in filters as the KH tends to move...I don't like moving targets..pretty difficult to hit. Want Ca/Mg just add Equilibrium or CaCl/CaCO3 and MgSO4. Add more flow to the reactor..get an individual powerhead of about 100g/hr flowrate to run the reactor instead of the filter outlet. Mix the outflow of the reactor well in the tank. That should solve the CO2 issue unless you have loads of surface movement or splashing.

[quote:888801e1="ranmasatome"]2) The new leaves coming from my plants seem to be more yellow than the old present ones...but they stay that way and develop into old leaves that way...the plants are growing but very slowly....the only thing that is growing fast is the glosso and water lily (with yellowish leaves of course)...even the E.parviflorus is slow...but all plants are living..no melts or anything like that...occasional loss of leaves from the E.stellata... and MM..and mermaid weed. also nanas has spot algae on it...the glass used to have but since the snails came...they dissappeared..[/quote:888801e1]

Take care of the CO2 issue first..nutrients are easy to deal with. Until you take care of the CO2, nothing will work well.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[liuhao]

i have just solved my co2 injection problem. think maybe helpful for you.

same as you, i also use co2 tank/solenoid and a ceramic diffuser. in the begining, i found no matter how high is my bubble rate, my PH is stable at 7.4. my KH is 4 btw. my diffusor is located just on top of gravel in the left side of tank. my canister output is in the same side about 5cm below water surface. it points horizontally so when co2 bubbles reach same level of my canister output, the water flow will blow them to the rest of the tank. this is the initial idea but i found no matter how high is my bubble rate, the PH is always about 7.4 which means i have less than 15ppm co2.

after close observation, i found when the co2 bubbles reaching water surface, they are getting smaller and smaller. however, when they are blowed away, they get bigger again. just like when you shake a bottle of pop, lots of gas escaped. also, the water flow causes some interruptions on water surface, though not significant.

so later. i reduce the flow rate of my canister to very low level so that there is ABSOLUTELY no water surface interruption. but then the water flow is not strong enough to blow co2 bubbles away. so i connect a rainbar and put it on top of co2 diffusor and point the water flow direction 45 degrees down. in this way, when co2 bubbles go up, they will be GENTALLY blow down again and flow towards the other side of tank.

after done this, i set my bubble rate to 1 bps and take a nap. 3 hours later, i get up and test the PH. my godness it's 6.2!!! maybe it's even lower because the lowest my PH testkit can test is 6.2. it means the co2 is 50ppm or higher.

that is 7pm yesterday evening. i immediately turn off co2. this morning, i test it again and it's still very close to 6.2. now i have problem of too low PH...

hope this helps.

[PeterGwee]

Reducing circulation in order to keep CO2 in the water is a bad idea. Try a better form of mixing for the CO2 and keep the surface movement to a reasonable rate (not too much and not too little).

Regards
Peter Gwee

[ranmasatome]

thanks Guys...i will separate the diffuser from the outlet valve. and then connect a rain bar to the outlet valve. blowing close to water suirface...but not too much disturbance...just enough to cause movement..

Peter, no i dont use any coral chips for my kH, also never add/dose anything for it. Usually when i do a water change it goes up to 5...then it slowly drops to about 4.5 after 2 weeks so i would say it is pretty stable at 5, since i do water changes about once a week.

Want Ca/Mg just add Equilibrium or CaCl/CaCO3 and MgSO4

Are you suggesting that i use equilibrium?? i think the kH is stable enough right?

i will get my hands on a powerhead...and try mixing the CO2 with the water that way...from power head to reactor to another rainbar at the bottom of tank...think that should be able to be done tonight...will keep you guys updated....Thanks.

[ranmasatome]

Okay so about 3-4 days have passed and i have set up the tank as such...today being saturday..i went around to fish shops and did some shopping....came back with a drop checker and after 5hrs i measured the pH...and its now 6.6~6.8!!! YAY!!!! Thanks guys!! this is working great!!

So...i also bought the entire set of lushgrow stuff to get started on my dosing.....was looking at all the seachem stuff at fish shops and TMG...but decided to go this way cos cheaper...lol...now that i have these in hand i wanted to start dosing...but then i realised that LGM is actually just higher conc. of LGA in terms of trace elements...They also provided 2 bottles of Sodium bicarbonate (which i doubt i'll use since the KH is pretty constant now).Then theres the MgSO4, KH2PO4 and KNO3....which is starting to confuse me...do i need to test for ALL these parameters b4 adding them since i want to know roughly about how much is in the tank b4 hand?

[ranmasatome]

Does anyone know what are the water parameters for singapore water?? i can't find the nutrient contents anywhere with a google search...
PLS help...

[|squee|]

http://www.pub.gov.sg/our_services/W...;l3=5&l4=8

[budak]

ranma,

if you dose using the Tom Barr Estimative Index method (do a search, the article's in the Aquatic FAQ), you don't need to test for any nutrient except KH and pH. And if your CO2 and light is enough, excess nutrients won't cause any harm.

[ranmasatome]

Thanks Guys..
i've currently dosed 0.75ppm of PO4 and added 2ppm of NO3. Considering the information given by the site...that states that our water has >0.1ppm of PO4 and an NO3 level of 0.5-15 (with and average od 7.5) This should set my water parameter to about 0.85ppm of PO4 and about 9.5ppm of NO3 working on and average...

Dosed both LGA and LGM according to the bottle specification and that = 5 drops of LGM and 5ml of LGA...cos the tank is 2 feet so should work out to 57 litres.

i have one question though...about K+....if i dose KNO3 for both NO3 and K+ then the solution i made would only dose 0.5ppm of NO3 with each ml BUT also only 0.3ppm of K+. In Order to dose enough K+ which is like 20ppm...i would have to have NO3 overkill!!...how did you guys solve this problem?? does some K+ come from elsewhere like KH2PO4?? or anywhere else?? Thanks in advance.

[budak]

i won't worry about the excess NO3.... i add liberally (PUB water be damned, I think you can get away with assuming it has no more than 1-2 mg/l NO3) and probably get a peak of 15-20 mg/l right after dosing. Plants, esp. fast growing species, suck up NO3 at very high rates.

[|squee|]

But what if one has slow-growers only? The problem ranmasatome alsoed bugged me last night... I was wondering how the hell to get K+ without over-killing on no3

[budak]

my own setup is primarily of species reputed to be slow growers: crypts, anubias, ferns, mosses. But these species will thrive and grow fast too with high CO2 and medium to high lighting. It gets about 2 WPG and I add in the full (probably more) dose of Tom Barr's recommendation of ferts every week. KH is 6-7, pH 6.5.

[|squee|]

Ah I'm enlightened. Thanks for relieving me of this problem. There is a hell lot more I haven't learnt argh.

[ranmasatome]

Thanks Budak...i was still curious and checked up on the contents of LGA...and realised that it already has a ton of K in it...so i think i'm okay for K+ even without additional dosing...

The problem now is that i went to the singapore hydrophnics web site and realised that the LGM is only supposed to be added at one drop per 100L for aquatic plants and i've added 4-5 for 57L!!!
moreover..the site also states that LGA "add 1-5 drops of this solution PER TEN LITRES to the tank 1-2 times a month or whenever you change the water. NEVER ADD MORE THAN FIVE DROPS At A TIME. If your aquarium is big, then add 10 ml or ONE CAP FULL PER 100 LITRES of water in the tank." AND i've added a total of 4-5ml to the 57L WEEKLY already!!!

All this info was not stated on the bottle....did i just OVERKILL everything?? Has anyone that has dosed these products know if what i dosed is okay or was it WAAAAY to much??

[juggler]

ranmasatome: The dosing on the LGA and LGM is suggested by Dr Mallick. I don't know but maybe he meant it for moderately lighted tanks without CO2 injection etc... For us who up the CO2 and lighting, we need to dose more.

We did an Excel calculator some time back to compute the dosings for LGA and LGM. You may like to check out to see if it helps you. Click here.

[ranmasatome]

Wow...Thanks a bunch Juggler....but how do you read the ppm readings?? i mean...there is daily and weekly...what do those mean?? like is that the ppm i'll get if i dose daily/weekly the dosage i put in the calculator?? if so then why is daily lower than weekly?? Thanks!! it helped tons...

[ranmasatome]

okay...nevermind that las post..lol...just figured it out....daily means the amount the plant gets daily....weekly is the total for that week. Thanks again for all the help guys!!

Does anyone have opinions to dose daily..like a little at a time or all at once per week??