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Colton M

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Everything posted by Colton M

  1. Colton M
    I’ve not had the time to work on anything yet but I did do a water change in my tanks using 25% water straight from the well and the rest from the tap after softener, seems to be a little better for the plants. I’d like to run a line still but I’m not sure if it would be best to set up the RO as I would still have to supplement with minerals. I’d like to try from the iron filter straight to the tank and possibly just stick with harder water plants, I don’t want to do high tech setups or anything but I do really like dwarf hairgrass…
  2. Colton M
    We have an RO system here that is not hooked up, so I’ll see what I can do.
  3. Colton M
    @Seattle_Aquarist Here are the hardness readings before our softener or iron filter from the test strips I got, like I said before my GH and KH are both max for the scale. The water also kinda smells like eggs or something similar, not overwhelming bad though but definitely notable.
  4. Colton M
    This is also a filter less tank with Java moss so it contributes to the amount of the mulm
  5. Colton M
    Picked up some test strips today but as an experiment I did a large water change in one of my planted 10g tanks last week using spring water from the store (ice mountain 2.5g containers from Walmart $4.25 each) and it seems to have really helped reduce the algae and the plants are doing much better as well. Here is a photo, there is a lot of mulm but the panda corys like to play in it so I keep it there. And the picture doesn’t look great but the hair grass used to have yellow/brown tips which are all back to green now.
  6. Colton M
    I do actually get a ton of algae in all my other tanks, but for some reason the one with the majority of my fish is okay other than all the bba that blooms every time I do a water change of any size.
  7. Colton M
    Sounds like our softener is a little different as rather than resin beads or other media, we use salt pellets that dissolve over time, so I’m essentially dosing with a relatively large amount of salt without any other hard minerals at all.
  8. Colton M
    Not too worried about it as it’s not too crazy much, a well planted tank should keep it taken care of I think.
  9. Colton M
    I’ll try to find a test kit this week, for a while I was having really good luck with my guppies and endless breeding quite a bit, I’m sure they still are but I also have Congo tetras with them now, I have kept away from crypts up to this point for whatever reason, but I’d like to try something red to add some color, but I’m not sure what will work yet. I’ll have to try some different plants and see what I can come up with! I’ll probably bypass the softener as it removes a lot of minerals but what is the equilibrium you use? Is it a universal water treatment or something specific to your parameters?
  10. Colton M
    This is exactly why I have some ammonia in my well water.
  11. Colton M
    I don’t have tests for that like I thought I did, I’ll have to get test strips unless I can find a liquid one.
  12. Colton M
    pH -7.5 Ammonia -0.50ppm Nitrite -0ppm Nitrate -0ppm @The Killer of Fish@Seattle_Aquarist I thought I had test strips for hardness but unfortunately I do not, the photo messes with the colors a bit so I added the readings above. This is straight from the well, before the iron filter.
  13. Colton M
    It has not been installed yet as I’m a ways from the store so I have to wait for parts, I believe the iron here would be too strong for fish unfortunately, the plants may like it a lot but it’s bad enough that the walls of our showers and toilets turn brown if we don’t have that filter, but I’d be open to trying it, I do have access to water straight from the well at the moment at least to test, now that I have a little time tonight I’m finally going to test it and post here in about an hour with results.
  14. Colton M
    It’s getting a bit late and I need parts so the plumbing will have to wait until the weekend, I’ll get a sample of the well water tonight, but I’m not sure if the iron will throw off the readings?
  15. Colton M
    Hoping to get the fitting installed tonight, I will have to bring buckets upstairs until I can get pipe run but it will work for now, should I expect a lower ph then after the iron filter without the water softener? I’m also a little concerned that the water will be extremely hard but we’ll have to see. If it is very hard what are the suggestions to lowering hardness without tannins?
  16. Colton M
    Unfortunately I have not been able to get measurements of the water, but I did learn that the water coming from the well into my house goes through an iron filter and then to a water softener that uses the yellow bags of Morton softener salt pellets, I’m hoping to add a T after the iron filter and before the water softener but I’m not sure what the hardness or ph will be after that.
  17. Colton M
    I will get exact numbers when I get to the house using my master test kit but ph is around 8, hardness is off the chart (high end) for both and nitrates are very close to zero.
  18. Colton M
    Thank you all for the replies, some more info about the tank, the tank with the Val in it is a 55g that I’ve tried a ton of different plants in. It has a 75g sponge filter, some Congo tetras, neon tetras, guppies, kuhli loaches, emerald corydoras, and a common pleco. Not overstocked but definitely a large range of fish as this tank has become something of an everything tank. I live on a well with a water softener so my kh is pretty high and ph is around 8. I keep the tank at 78°F. And for the light I have a Fluval aqua sky 900mm with the lights turning on at sunrise and at 60% power until sunset (roughly 5:00am to 8:30pm). And for substrate I have Fluval Stratum about 2 1/2 inches deep.
  19. Colton M
    Hello, I’m new to the forum but not new to the site, I’ve purchased many plants in the last couple years I’ve been in the hobby and I just cannot get my plants to grow, I’ve been using easy green about once a week with the recommended dosage, as well as api co2 booster (liquid) as often as I remember to do so (about 3x a week). Like the title says, I just cannot get any plants to grow in any of my tanks! Please let me know what other information is needed to get some help, I’ve spent a concerning amount of money on plants… The photo attached is of my Jungle Val which has shown no signs of growth and looks very sad.
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