need some help

[af2373]

murphy's law says, anything tat can go wrong will go wrong. It really happened to my tank....need some help from the buddies here.

on 27/2, i intelligently changed the timings on my timer from 1500-2300hrs to 1100-2100hrs. the next day after i did the change in timings, i noticed the water getting dusty. (since then, i've read up and now know tat it's not advisable to change photo period )

on 29/2, i added some nutrafin plant gro to the tank. but i accidentally poured too much of it into the tank. i reckon i had added in at least 4-5 caps instead of my usual 1 cap. Water conditions got chalkier...

I've been doing 25% water change on 30/2, 2/3. Then on 3/3, i did a 50% water change. Water conditions improved slightly.

I've not tested my water parameters this week....cos i'm totally devasted. i'll do so this weekend. another piece of info, my tank is relatively new, it's abt 1mth old. At the same time, i noticed algae forming on the walls of the tank, i got to clean them off every 3 days....

Are the actions taken thus far correct?

[vinz]

Do 2 more 50% water changes over 2 days to reduce the extra fert dose and clear the water. Remember to use anti-chlorine/chloramine just to make sure you don't damage the bacteria colony or stress the fish. Check that your CO2 is at ok levels. Re-dose your PlantGro accordingly (and carefully!). This should bring you back to square 1.

I don't know what is in Nutrafin PlantGro, so I can't give specific advice there.

I slowed down/cleared algae on my glass with 2 things. PO4 and Fe/traces. Start with PO4, that only comes from fish food and if your bio-load is low and you feed little, there isn't much to go around. Liquid ferts seldom contain P or PO4.

Fe and traces, I assume are in PlantGro, so dose accordingly first. I will suggest switching to TMG, LushGro or Flourish when the bottle finishes. It's easier when you know the contents.

To help you better, we need to know:
- Using CO2?
- Lights in (WPG)
- Bio-load?
- What plants?

[cheeboonyong]

Depending on how valuable are the stuff in your tank now, you may want to consider a 100% water change. It'll really RESET everything. Of course, if the underlying problems are still there, you'll face it again. But it's a good way to RESET.

[af2373]

[quote:1bf3220528="vinz"]Do 2 more 50% water changes over 2 days to reduce the extra fert dose and clear the water. Remember to use anti-chlorine/chloramine just to make sure you don't damage the bacteria colony or stress the fish. Check that your CO2 is at ok levels. Re-dose your PlantGro accordingly (and carefully!). This should bring you back to square 1.

I don't know what is in Nutrafin PlantGro, so I can't give specific advice there.

I slowed down/cleared algae on my glass with 2 things. PO4 and Fe/traces. Start with PO4, that only comes from fish food and if your bio-load is low and you feed little, there isn't much to go around. Liquid ferts seldom contain P or PO4.

Fe and traces, I assume are in PlantGro, so dose accordingly first. I will suggest switching to TMG, LushGro or Flourish when the bottle finishes. It's easier when you know the contents.

To help you better, we need to know:
- Using CO2?
- Lights in (WPG)
- Bio-load?
- What plants?[/quote:1bf3220528]


okie, will do the 50% water changes starting tonight. and will also feed my fishes more regularly...i actually starve them quite a bit. i only feed them a tipsy bit every 3-4 days.

- Using CO2?
Yup. bubbling at 2bps by diffuser.

- Lights in (WPG)
2 x 36W PL

- Bio-load?
6 neon, 12 rasboras, 2 pencils, 1 danio, 2 snails, 3 otos.

- What plants?[/quote]
mainly hydo difformis, vals, tenellus, glosso

additional info,
tank size is 2 by 1.5 by 1.5ft.

Contents in nutrafin plantgro are as follows (hope it's useful):
- Total Nitrogen (N): 0.15%
--0.15% Water Soluble Organic Nitrogen (Cheleated agent)
- Iron (Fe): 0.26%
-- 0.26% Chelated Iron
- Manganese (Mn): 0.05%
-- 0.05% Chelated and soluble Manganese
- Zinc (Zn): 0.003%
-- 0.003% Chelated Zinc
- Boron (B): 0.0005%
- Copper (Cu): 0.0005%
-- 0.0005% Chelated Copper
- Molybdate (Mo): 0.0007%
-- 0.0007% Chelated Molybdate

[vinz]

Looks like PlantGro is nothing but traces plus a tinsy winsy bit of Nitrogen. 1ml of that to 10l of tank water will give you about 0.25ml of Fe and 0.15ppm of N plus some traces. In fact, the compostion is similar to LushGro Micros except for the N.

This will make your tank (which is moderate light) low on macro nutrients. Get LushGro Aqua, TMG or Flourish to supplement PlantGro. You'll need to consider dosing NO3, PO4, K, Ca and Mg too.

[af2373]

vinz, last question.

where to get those lushgro aqua/ micros products which u mentioned? also roughly how much r they?

[PeterGwee]

You can go for the micros if you want for traces but do get the N,P,K stuff separate instead of using LushGro Aqua. Getting stuff separate gives you flexibility in dosing. You can find the price list on the Dr Mallick's website. http://www.singaporehydroponics.com

Regards
Peter Gwee

[vinz]

LushGro Aqua also from Dr Mallicks. You can get Dr Mallicks stuff from Eco-Culture too. See LFS list.

[af2373]

thks vinz for yr advice!

water getting better looking now....though still not very clear. any idea roughly how long it takes to be clear again?

now onto some queries on ph & kh which's bugging me...i cannot seem to figure them out though a fellow forumer had given me a very thorough run thru some time back......

1. For low kh, i do know tat adding kh plus or baking soda will help raise it. but for a high kh of 6, how do i bring it lower? water change?
2. Does kh fluctuate or would it remain constant once it's set? I reckon water change would change the kh but assuming if nothing's done, would it change?
3. For ph, as i'm using a sera test kit, i can only estimate tat my ph is roughly 6.5-7. Do we need ph to be very precise to 0.1?

[vinz]

In normal circumstances, your KH will not change without water change. To lower it change water. For practical purposes, take Singapore water to be 0 dKH (it's acutally around 1). So changing 50% will lower your tank KH by half. Change 25% water, will lower your KH by 25%.

So if you maintain 4dKH and you change 25% water, you need to add back 1dKH.

To rasie KH, use either baking soda or some KH raising product.

Your KH can drop by itself, if you have plants that can strip carbon out of carbonate. But they only do that when you do not provide enough C in the form of CO2.

The other case of KH dropping by itself is when you use ADA Aquasoil. No personal experience in that.

As for pH, getting 0.1 pH accuracy will be ideal, but impossible with the hobby test kits. A test pen will be a better tool... but expensive. If you are using test kits, then err towards higher CO2. If you look at Chuck Gadd's chart, you maintain between 3 to 4dKH and 6.5pH, you should be fairly safe. Note though, both the KH and pH test kits can be inaccurate plus human error, better to be around to observe the fishes when you make the adjustments. If you do not have a solenoid, then play a little safer and aim for the lower of the range.

Your tank is quite high-light you should be looking at NO3 and K as well. K at 5 to 10ppm per week and NO3 at 5 to 10ppm 2 or 3 times a week.

[af2373]

ming liao! finally understand better now.

just got back home and tested my kh levels. it's at 3dkh. this reading is taken at approx 5hrs into photo period.

as for my ph, it's a bit low (at abt 6) so i adjusted co2 by a tiny itsy bit to abt 3bubbles per sec. i'll take the readings 2 hrs later to see how it goes.

i do not use ADA aquasoil...kinda exp for me.....me only using gravel and ocean free roots pellets. i do hv a solenoid....but to be safe, i look at it constantly when i make adjustments to the co2 output. previously, when i used a manual gauge, i actually wiped out my entire of fishes when i made some co2 adj then went for work.....

i'll keep the 3-4dkh and 6.5 PH in mind. once i get these correct, i'll settle the N and K. gotta make a trip to eco culture this week.

vinz, thks for sharing these new stuff wth me these few days!!!

[PeterGwee]

Vinz, his lights are fine....about 2W/G for the overall tank size.

Dosing nutrients without keeping the CO2 in good range consistently would not help the plants much. They would not use that much nutrient if they are carbon limited.

If you are doing CO2 24/7, you might want to do the CO2 through a inverted powerhead w/rainbar attached to the bottom back of your tank instead of a diffuser. In this way, you can off the CO2 through powering off the powerhead and hit good CO2 levels during the day. Much more efficient than a diffuser as it circulates the CO2 throughout the tank well and does not clog like a diffuser.

As for the pH measurement thing, if budget is a problem for you, you might want to try the AP pH test kit. Its has a much narrower range than the Sera.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[af2373]

[quote:79044c76c6="PeterGwee"]Vinz, his lights are fine....about 2W/G for the overall tank size.

Dosing nutrients without keeping the CO2 in good range consistently would not help the plants much. They would not use that much nutrient if they are carbon limited.

If you are doing CO2 24/7, you might want to do the CO2 through a inverted powerhead w/rainbar attached to the bottom back of your tank instead of a diffuser. In this way, you can off the CO2 through powering off the powerhead and hit good CO2 levels during the day. Much more efficient than a diffuser as it circulates the CO2 throughout the tank well and does not clog like a diffuser.

As for the pH measurement thing, if budget is a problem for you, you might want to try the AP pH test kit. Its has a much narrower range than the Sera.

Regards
Peter Gwee [/quote:79044c76c6]

hi peter, i'm using a solenoid valve. will be swopping over to a reactor this weekend.

in the meantime, it's balancing those ph & kh thingy....may hv to resort to a AP test kit.

[vinz]

[quote:edcf039437="PeterGwee"]Vinz, his lights are fine....about 2W/G for the overall tank size.

...[/quote:edcf039437]

Opps, my bad. I took it to be a typical 2ft tank.