Help! Please check my beginners Info Sheet

[eric_thian]

Beginners Info Sheet
--------------------

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 895mm x 460mm 460mm
Tank Volume (litres or gallons): 189.4L
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) : 182W
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : PL Light
No. of Hours your light is on : 6 hours
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 2.5 bps for 6 hours same timing as PL light
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : Tank
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor): Wann Hae Multi Derection CO2 Diffue Reactor
Substrate Used :
How Thick is your base fert : Use Hexa Root Grow about 10-15mm think
How thick is your gravel : 60mm Think
Liquid Fertilizers Used : JBL Ferropol
Frequency of fertilization : Last used on 7 June 2003
Tank Temperature : 27-28D
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : Eheim canister
Filter media used :
How long has your tank been set up : 6 June 2003
Other equipment : Cooler Fan, UV Sterilizer

Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
---------------------------------------
Carbonate Hardness (KH): 3
Total Hardness (gH):
pH : 7
NH4 (ppm):
NO2 (ppm): <0.3 mg/l
NO3 (ppm):
PO4 (ppm):
Fe (ppm):

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)
Fish:
1) 10-15 oto
2) 1 Ram, 10 glass shrimp
3) 1 golden Tetra
4) 8 unknown fish

Plants:
1) About 2 feet ricca,
2) 15 to 20 stalk of different species of Bacopa
3) 6 to 10 stalk of lysimachia nummularia ‘aurea’
4) 1 aponogeton
5) 2 cryptocoryne
6) 1 echinodorus amazonicus or echinodorus horemanii (both look alike)
7) about 8 stalk of hygrophila difformis
1 nymphaea species ‘red’, mayaca fluviatilis
9) lilaeopsis novaezelandiae
10)ludwigia palustris
------------------------------

<State what fishes and plants you have to the best of your ability>
Ram eat snail


Describe your problem:
Grow Thread algae rapidly on my ricca and some green algae also. Snail appear in my aquarium. Hope that ram can help. Is pencil fish, yamato & glass shrimp help to eat thread algae & green algae. Does glass shrimp eat up dead fish also? If yes, I might want to buy 100 glass shrimp in my 2 feet tank. There are many types of pencil fish, which are the one can eat thread algae.

[David]

Hi Eric

One thing is for sure is that you have insufficient dissolved CO2 in your water column as your KH is at 3 and your PH is at 7....You may want to consider raising your KH to about 8 and your PH to about 6.7.

For a tank that is barely a month old, I recommend that you cut back on your liquid fert as your wattage per gallon is rather strong. and increase your lighting duration to 8hrs for a week and then to 10hrs.

You have too much Ottos I feel, and insufficient Yamatoes...I dont think glass shrimps are going to be of much help even with 100 of them.....start off with 30 Yamatoes.

[naturetan]

More than 1W/l of lighting is too much for a tank to cause algae. I would suggest you to reduce lighting amount to about 0.4-0.8W/l, depending on your choice.

This is important, beside fertilizing, as IMO, no amount of algae-eaters will be able to fix an algae prone tank.

[theodore]

Qn: Are your shrimps called "Glass shrimps" (aka Ghost Shrimps) or "Malayan shrimps"?

The former is used as fish food most of the time but some forumers use them to control snail population. Many people avoid them because larger Ghost Shrimps are known to attack smaller fishes and shrimps.

Malayan Shrimp is another type of algae-eating shrimp we use in our tanks besides Yamato. Cheaper but less effective from my experience.

[eric_thian]

Can I add PH down and sera KH plus at the same time? My PH light come with 1 of nos. 110W & 2 nos. of 36W. Can I reduce to 1 no. of 110W & 1 no. of 36W PL light? Is it sufficent. I don't know glass shrimp is Malayan shrimp or ghost shrimp. What I see my glass shrimp most are translusant and some are red or orange. As for liquid fertillizer, should I stop for a month but I'm worry my ricca need fetillizer? Is there any snail eater beside buffer? Thank

[bclee]

----------------
On 6/27/2003 9:22:10 AM

Can I add PH down and sera KH plus at the same time? My PH light come with 1 of nos. 110W & 2 nos. of 36W. Can I reduce to 1 no. of 110W & 1 no. of 36W PL light? Is it sufficent. I don't know glass shrimp is Malayan shrimp or ghost shrimp. What I see my glass shrimp most are translusant and some are red or orange. As for liquid fertillizer, should I stop for a month but I'm worry my ricca need fetillizer? Is there any snail eater beside buffer? Thank
----------------

KH, pH & CO2
Adding pH down will reduce KH. KH3 is fine IMO. Reduce pH by increasing CO2. Target for KH3 & pH6.5 should be fine.

You can refer to this chart for the KH/pH/CO2 relationship. Just a little about KH/pH/CO2 relatinship.

Add KH-plus (or baking soda): KH increase, pH increase
Add pH-down (an acid): KH decrease, pH decrease
Add CO2: KH no change, pH decrease.

Lighting
To confirm again, your lighting is 2x55W + 2x36? Actually you can live with this lighting, but it is going to be a challenge for beginers. You can probably cut down 1x36W. As David say, you got to slowly increase your lighting hours. It is because it takes the plants a few hours to accumulate the photosynthesis intermediates before photosynthesis goes into full swing.

Shrimps
By your description, your shrimps should be malayan shrimps. They are moderately effective again hair algae. But they will only eat young algae and slowing the algae propogation. So you still have to manually remove most of the algae.

Fertilisers
It has been 3 weeks since you start up. I think there should not a problem adding the liquid fertilisers. You can probably use lower dosage and increase according to how your plants respond.

If you really want to go into this planted tank hobby, I will suggest you get test kits like NO3 & PO4. NO3 & PO4 are important plant nutrients. Knowing these values will tell you valuable information about your tank health. A number of us here are dosing K, NO3 & PO4 (3 of the macronutrients) apart from the liquid fertilisers.

BC

[theodore]

You will probably find something out-of-whack after you get the test kits BC recommended (it was PO4 for my case). The following article should help.

List of Recommended Levels by Tom Barr

[eric_thian]

----------------
On 6/27/2003 10:06:14 AM

quote]
KH, pH & CO2
Adding pH down will reduce KH. KH3 is fine IMO. Reduce pH by increasing CO2. Target for KH3 & pH6.5 should be fine.

You can refer to this chart for the KH/pH/CO2 relationship. Just a little about KH/pH/CO2 relatinship.

Add KH-plus (or baking soda): KH increase, pH increase
Add pH-down (an acid): KH decrease, pH decrease
Add CO2: KH no change, pH decrease.

Lighting
To confirm again, your lighting is 2x55W + 2x36? Actually you can live with this lighting, but it is going to be a challenge for beginers. You can probably cut down 1x36W. As David say, you got to slowly increase your lighting hours. It is because it takes the plants a few hours to accumulate the photosynthesis intermediates before photosynthesis goes into full swing.

Shrimps
By your description, your shrimps should be malayan shrimps. They are moderately effective again hair algae. But they will only eat young algae and slowing the algae propogation. So you still have to manually remove most of the algae.

Fertilisers
It has been 3 weeks since you start up. I think there should not a problem adding the liquid fertilisers. You can probably use lower dosage and increase according to how your plants respond.

If you really want to go into this planted tank hobby, I will suggest you get test kits like NO3 & PO4. NO3 & PO4 are important plant nutrients. Knowing these values will tell you valuable information about your tank health. A number of us here are dosing K, NO3 & PO4 (3 of the macronutrients) apart from the liquid fertilisers.

BC
----------------

Thanks for the info. If I want to add KH plus to increase to 8 & add more CO2 to decrease PH level,but how many bps for CO2 to reduce my PH level to 6.7? If more CO2 to add, will my fish & shrimp can take it? 30 yamato can eat both young & mature algae than 100 glass shrimp. Does pancil fish helps too? Is there any snail eater beside buffer? Thanks.

[tawauboy]

how many bps is required depends on your tank size and the amount of plants you have. so nobody can tell exactly how many bps you'll require. however, you can do it yourself easily.

after you fixed your kh (3-6), by adding kh plus or baking soda, slowly increase the co2 bubble rate. you can use this guide . you should be aiming for 20-30ppm of co2. monitor your fishes and shrimps. if they are near the water surface and gasping for air then you are overdosing co2. do it slowly.

yamato shrimp are good algae eaters but are not the silver bullet for algae combat. you'll need to manually remove as much algae as possible and balance your tank's nutrient levels.
glass shrimps are more of a scavenger than an algae eater. sometimes they do attack other shrimps and small fishes.

[eric_thian]

Sorry, may I know what is the meaning of ppm. How to calculate 20-30ppm. I check from internet Algone can eliminate most of the algae. Also suitable for plant tank. Is it safe to use them?

[theodore]

May I offer you a few quick ways to get the answers to some of your questions in this forum?

1. Read the FAQs posted in the "Aquatic FAQs" section. They are a great help if you are new to the hobby.

2. Use the [Search] button.
Use of Algone has been discussed a couple of times already. Read those postings and decide if you still wish to try the product.

3. Check out the links (click on the underlined words) provided by some of us. BC gave you a link to the CO2-pH-KH table on theKrib. I gave you a link to Tom Barr's recommendations. Both links will give you the answer you need for your 1st question on ppm.

[TBI]

eric.....algone means allgone, everything will be gone....[:0]
think it is not so wise using ALLGONE! hee
control is better than using all those gone gone stuff as mention by those experience aquarists.
unless u wan everything to be GONE! hahaha.

[geoffrey]

Was your plants growing fast in the early three weeks before you had algae? With that amount of light, I reckon they are. And indeed if they are, I reckon most of the nutrient would have been taken up. Get your CO2 fixed at 20~30ppm and start dosing your ferts.

Or you may want to slow things down abit by reducing your light. You should still dose fert with less light and slowly increase them. More light -> more energy -> with good CO2, faster growth -> nutrient uptake faster too. If nutrients are not supplemented, you get algae.

Try not to use commercially available stuff to fight algae. In the fight against algae, be flora-centric, keep plants healthy and you won't have algae.

[eric_thian]

Beginners Info Sheet
--------------------

Tank Dimensions (LxWxH): 895mm x 460mm 460mm
Tank Volume (litres or gallons): 189.4L
Lighting Intensity(No of Watts) : 182W
Type of Lighting (FL/PL/MH) : PL Light
No. of Hours your light is on : 8 hours
CO2 Injection Rate (bps) : 3 bps for 8 hours same timing as PL light
Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : Tank
Method of Injection (e.g. Diffusor/Reactor): Wann Hae Multi Derection CO2 Diffue Reactor
Substrate Used :
How Thick is your base fert : Use Hexa Root Grow about 10-15mm think
How thick is your gravel : 60mm Think
Liquid Fertilizers Used : JBL Ferropol
Frequency of fertilization : Last used on 7 June 2003
Tank Temperature : 27-28D
Type of Filter (overhead/internal/canister) : Eheim canister
Filter media used :
How long has your tank been set up : 6 June 2003
Other equipment : Cooler Fan, UV Sterilizer

Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
---------------------------------------
Carbonate Hardness (KH): 6
Total Hardness (gH):
pH : 7
NH4 (ppm):
NO2 (ppm): <0.3 mg/l
NO3 (ppm):
PO4 (ppm):
Fe (ppm):

Bioload (Your Fish and Plants)
Fish:
1) 10-15 oto
2) 1 Ram, 10 glass shrimp
3) 1 golden Tetra
4) 8 unknown fish

Plants:
1) About 2 feet ricca,
2) 15 to 20 stalk of different species of Bacopa
3) 6 to 10 stalk of lysimachia nummularia ‘aurea’
4) 1 aponogeton
5) 2 cryptocoryne
6) 1 echinodorus amazonicus or echinodorus horemanii (both look alike)
7) about 8 stalk of hygrophila difformis
1 nymphaea species ‘red’, mayaca fluviatilis
9) lilaeopsis novaezelandiae
10)ludwigia palustris
------------------------------

Describe your problem:
Grow Thread algae rapidly on my ricca and some green algae also. Snail appear in my aquarium. Hope that ram can help. Is pencil fish, yamato & glass shrimp help to eat thread algae & green algae. Does glass shrimp eat up dead fish also? If yes, I might want to buy 100 glass shrimp in my 2 feet tank. There are many types of pencil fish, which are the one can eat thread algae.

I have increase my KH to 6. Light & CO2 increase to 8 hours. CO2 set to 3bps. PL light reduce to 146W. Just add in 20 yamato. Is it enough? Think of buying pencilfish to control my thread algae. How many pencilfish do I need? Is it OK to buy 1 mini buffer to control my snail. I'm afraid mini buffer might attack my yamato and other fish. Please advise. Thank.

[PeterGwee]

Mmmm...something fishy with your pH reading...it is not moving at all? (I doubt your test kit..get a pH test pen). You have very high light and probably low CO2...this is going to cause you much grief if you don't get the CO2 right. Do it! Get it done with or else adding all the fert would not work!

[eric_thian]

.......Maybe. I use sera PH Test kit. The colour look alike. I think I don,t have colour blind. If not, the PH should be 7.5. Shall I need to increase 4bps or 5bps. Fishes & plants will die if inject more CO2? CO2 can reduce PH level?[:0]

[PeterGwee]

Sera pH test kit range is no good for precise CO2 measurement. 20-30ppm of CO2 would not kill your fish nor your shrimps. I have told you what you can do...its all up to you.