BettaFishCO

@anewbie I'm not 100% but I believe (I should really look it up again) that it's something to do with the water basically squeezing out oxygen or the sucking up of oxygen. Oxygen reducing something...Oxygen reduction potential "had to look it up lol". After reading (headache) I believe I'm on the right track but maybe @Streetwise can clear things up. Also, hello streetwise. I don't think I'm too vulnerable to low oxygen environments to need to monitor it. Would I need the PM2 module to run the rest of the equipment on freshwater? Also, ever heard of over oxygenation of freshwater? I probably would run into that before too little. If so, I'll look into measuring orp.

@tolstoy21That looks great as well. Thanks for the link. My only issue is it has 1 review and I need it to stay true (zeroed, calibrated). I'll definitely look into it and hopefully it pans out. Thanks again 21

@Mmiller2001So, you're calling any compound they secrete "waste". Waste:(of a material, substance, or byproduct) eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required after the completion of a process: Mint uses its chemical to repel animals and bugs, therefore useful and not a waste product (in my mind). If you use "waste as a super loose term then the plant itself is the waste product of the parenting plant which would carry any boundaries. I understand what you're saying, but even those are broken down to usable forms by bacteria which then I would say is bacteria waste, which then the plants use. I just wouldn't state the smell of a rose a "waste" product. But I see how you use the term now. But maybe I have more research to do🤪 Also, I was using the example of eco setups to prove that plants and biological filtration cleans water, not adds to ppm like your previous statement suggests. The Walstad method proves my point that plants and microbiology clean water and doesn't generally make it dirtier. To raise the capacity of filtration of plants, you need to add more light and carbon. I'm not creating a self-contained ecosystem, I'm making a sump where most of the animal's byproduct will be turned into plant matter and then removed. The bubbles are not created by salt water, its created by proteins in the water. If your kidneys don't filter the protein and fats out of your urine, your urine will foam in the toilet. If it does filter excess protein, it will not. This was also the view of MC aquatics founder during a long talk about protein skimmers and how he uses normal protein skimmers in his freshwater tanks that are set up in his Florida location. Freshwater and salt water doesn't foam. It's the agitation (trapped air in) of organic compounds in the water that create the foaming action. Blow in a cup of salt water and fresh water and you'll see foam doesn't happen (unless you spit a lot or have massive loads of bacteria in your mouth and or breath. What is sea foam? (noaa.gov) Also, the word "never" is an unscientific term that predicts the future with 100% accuracy. That means it can't be true until always (timeline) passes.

@CinnebunsAll facts start as anecdotal. Thats great info. Ill totally use it. Right now, I only breed (haven't gave it attention yet) ottos in my neo shrimp tanks. Now i wonder if the baby shrimp will be fast enough. 😟

@nabokovfan87my flow is usually just the sponge filter but to be safe with o2 for them, I've added an additional air stone. I saw the first one but not the second. Some of those fish are insane. The blue black gobi and red one are super cool. LOL yea, I may have gone overboard with the large rocks. I just wanted large flat surfaces for them to dance on. Now that you mention it, it's way more packed than everyone else's. I'll keep it like this till algae grows on them then ill split 50/50 with a second tank and add smaller rocks. Thanks for sharing the vids. Sometimes i get lost researching and forget to sub to relevant channels like this one.

@TheSwissAquaristThanks a lot. Ill reach out to cory. I tried to upload a video of the rack but it didn't work. I'm behind on the whole messaging and sending tech nowadays. Im learning google drive links now and will post soon. looks like I don't know how to message cory directly. I'm pretty sure I've watched all his videos on it though.

@CinnebunsThanks, its all usful to me (just like a spelling teacher would be). I heard that the fats from blood worms really kick off spawning, have you tried? Idk as im new to ottos and hillys but its my understanding that ottos are very veg driven fish and are super unlikely to eat fish eggs. Idk what foot this falls on but ive read they do not eat meals but are instead full time grazers which leads me to think they wouldn't eat eggs but they also cover a lot of ground. Please update if you could. Really helps me out. @gardenmanlol Someone has a crush. The tank is pretty cool, but the Australian with Asian heritage is crazy amusing. The accent while looking Asian is pretty cool. Never seen that before.

@nabokovfan87pothos will be grown as well but they don't need tank space really. Poths will be hanging down the sides of the bins (6 faces or around 54sqft of light surface for 2 totes) and red rooters will be on every surface of the 21 ram tanks around 63sqft. If there's one thing I'm good at, its utilizing space to fit more plant growth. I am playing with the possibility of placing 1 poth in every ram tank as well to grow over the side but it might be too much of a hassle to take it out to vac when needed. I'll try it on a couple and see how it goes. Goal is to utilize all growable surface areas so my poths won't hinder my rooters in the fish tanks and the moss walls won't hinder (to badly) the mid-level planting in the sump tanks and the poths will mind there biz on the lattice. Man talking about this has got me so pumped. I'm going to have a jungle again. Besides increasing ppm and lowering oxygen, Is there any other effects of those anti algae and or co2 booster? I've tried it and it worked great but I'm more of an environment guy then a chemical one. If I can keep it clean, cool, lfs will buy some cuttings. If i can't keep it perfect i plan to just add ottos and amonos.

@Mmiller2001I Agree that the wait may be worse than continuous. The main reason i would do timed ones would be to process the most accurate parameter readings. Ive never heard that plants give off waste, besides carbon dioxide and oxygen before. Do you have examples (if im understanding you correctly). I agree my bio load is high, but I've already proven that plants and micros can utilize much more then given credit for in my 20 gallon (10 cardinal, 10 amono shrimp, 2 kuhlis, 2 gourami dwarfs, one 3.5 inch giant betta, and 6 chain loaches). I would feed daily, heavily, but was sure there wasn't excess food sitting in the tank (poo was fine as long as the micros and plants could utilize it fast enough as it broke down). My tds still went down with ammonia at zero and nitrates super low. I had to add ppm with shrimp minerals (for proper molting) and my ppms never grew, always went down without water changes. Mind you I was also adding additional carbon in the form of co2 aswell. Luck is just a word used by people who can't calculate the variables. Totality of randomness doesn't exist. If things consistently built up and couldnt be utilized by an eco ecosystem, there would be no water on earth that could sustain life without man made filters. There are hundreds of examples of eco tanks online and people also stating that if bio load isn't high enough, your tds will go down because microbes and plants utilize it. Heres just a few from a couple online sources. Home Of The Miracle Mud Method Filtration System | EcoSystem Aquarium How do you start a tank ecosystem? | Exotic Fish Tank (1) Do you need to do water changes in a planted aquarium? - Quora If your ppm or tds and ammonia are not stable, then your tank is out of balance. Either you're putting more carbon in the tank than can be utilized or not enough. In either case (as long as it's not over stocked) your tank will balance out the rate of plant growth to the amount of carbon available (as long as there isn't any spike out of its healthy environment range). By adding (in my case) carbon in the form of fish food, I remove the excess carbon by cutting back and removing excess plant mater. Heres another guy that does changeless tanks in is store front. The rate is the only thing I'll need to dial in. Its hard to calculate a fishes bio load when they are just fry and always growing (using up ppm). In the 750 gallons that will hold fish, I may only have 100-200 that are "of selling size" at a time. The rest would probably not equal out to over 200-300 more adults. 500 rams in up to 1500 (750 purely planted, floaters on the the other 63 sqft 750 surface) gallons doesn't seem hard since I've already experimented with well over triple the stock load (inch per gallon, for small fish) and still had my ppms fall and never build. I'm interested in your take on all this and if you see a flaw or if this info clarified. I also may have used tds in place of ppm but all in all i usually am referring to ppm. PPM and Nitro cycle is all I currently feel is worth paying attention too. I say if those check out, your ph is fine and fish and plants are growing happy, no need to analyze micros like I tended to do as a Phyto chemist. Even then, I could get the same outcome by just maintaining soil cultures without reading into the chemical composition all the time. The protein skimmer is a device that skims suds (broken protein chains) and removes them to reduce the bacterial bio load of the water. This is another problem i want to know if i have solved. Will the high amounts of bacteria utilizing unsolvable be a detriment in my grow out process. It wasn't for my 20 but then again, every square inch was planted with mature plants from the start (over 400$ to scape, crazy) to create the surface area along with 2.5 inch substrate depth. Its now 2023, thanks for reading. 😪

@Mmiller2001 I believe micro-organisms and plants do absorb practically everything (at least from the carbon associated with fish food). Besides the protein skimmers addition, what nutrients would you say would not be able to keep up? I would say, most people dont plant heavily enough but how would you explain tanks without changes for 5+years? I would do water changes every now and then, but I don't see how the ppm would raise as the plants grew out. Every aquarist ive talked to said you ussually do water changes to add tds to heavily planted aquariums, not get rid of it. Its my understanding that fish food turns to fish waste and that leads to micro-organisms and plant minerals and nutrients. When the micros grow, they absorb a lot of tds for exos and basic biological growth as well as the plants. I know in my shrimp tank (with fish) I have to add minerals to keep my ppms up.

@Patrick_GDepends on how it all works and what the numbers come out to. If I can get enough growth, it'll be constant. If it needs a little more time I'll start a second tank and rotate the water in it.

@Mmiller2001No, its just a densely planted tank to clean the water. Its separated from the tank so some water can get cleaner while the fish tanks dirty, then swap the water.

Just looking for advice from successful hillstream breeders like how many in a tank, will a 10 be sufficient, best green foods etc. I have a pic of the updated tank (last one had snails and I didn't want them to eat the eggs). On another note, just found out that my 420 gallon pump on my 40 Betta barrack's that the pump wasn't strong enough to make enough pressure for my 1g drippers. So I trained in a hyperbolic chamber and came out above 9000. Now I'm pushing 3500 gallon pump and switched to 4 gallon drippers. Minor adjustments needed.

Just looking for advice from successful hillstream breeders like how many in a tank, will a 10 be sufficient, best green foods etc. I have a pic of the updated tank (last one had snails and I didn't want them to eat the eggs). On another note, just found out that my 420 gallon pump on my 40 Betta barrack's that the pump wasn't strong enough to make enough pressure for my 1g drippers. So I trained in a hyperbolic chamber and came out above 9000. Now I'm pushing 3500 gallon pump and switched to 4 gallon drippers. Minor adjustments needed.

@nabokovfan87 Exactly like that. I'm thinking 2 lights across. My foot print is infinite as i can always upgrade spaces. Right now i have a living room with around 450 gallons and a single car garage which I'm going to fill the entire place up to the celling with. After measuring, I should be able to fit around 3400 gallons with room to tend to the tanks. @Patrick_G Thanks Mr. G I don't remember ever needing a transformer for old style cob lights, but it's been probably 10-12 years since I was looking into cob. That good stuff.

I see what your saying, I'm using 250gallon totes with the tops cut out. If I move the plants to mid-way its equivalent to an 18-inch-tall tank roughly so I think at that point, spread may be the most important. I can place probably 4 fluval sized light bars but i doubt ill need that many. I think to wide casts may do the trick. @nabokovfan87That digi key article is funny. In 2016 they said it was relatively new but i was using them around 8 years before that. They started all home made till they came our commercially and were way to expensive.

Those are what im use to. the Kissil w360 comes with a detached metal box that hangs with it. This is what was confusing to me as I've never seen a led with a separate component. Why would you think space is an issue?

@nabokovfan87 Sweet. I'm usually not a huge fan of cob because of the heat distribution. Since space isn't an obstacle, I figure I wouldn't go for cobs.

That a 360x is super narrow and those are crazy small diodes. So it looks like a cob design, but they have added maybe a smart controller of sorts? maybe to get more even power consumption between all leds making them last longer? I think the lenses are about the same as what i have on my black dog but it has 5w diodes where I wouldn't be surprised if that whole array is 25w or less. Well, the tech has def gotten more compact. Thanks for the info, this is that good good. @Patrick_GThats great info. I knew stemmed plants were the way to go but I've usually just mixed them. Ill def do a mono crop if it's the best water cleaner. I also wanted to do java moss and xmas moss so ill still do some research. I may line the walls with the mosses.

Exactly, nothing for looks but the higher the growth rate the better. Ill have about 35-70 rams per 35 gallon tank on 24/7 changes from 2 250 gallon totes. I want to be able to plug in as many tanks to it as I can. Currently plan for 21 35g tanks for rams and again, their def going to be over stocked. If I can't keep the water perfect, Ill have to either add more totes (i can add an additional 1 for the rams) or shrink my ram population. So max 1500 gallons (half heavily planted) for 800-1600 rams depending on spawn. This is why i don't mind algae as long as its healthy.

What kind of substrate? I have a few on sand and I don't think I've ever seen those red blemishes before. I see them on my hillstreams but not the kuhlis. My kuhlis are also younger than yours so idk for sure.

Absolutely, I also believe that the rest of the bacteria that doesn't have enough food will die and produce more co2. The good news it will cycle faster but will be more volatile during it. It my understanding that the safest way with fish is to smoothly get through the process and not spike the bacteria as much as possible to speed it up unless you don't have fish. But Idk if you should listen to me, Im a noob. I would add a tiny bit just to be sure good bac is still present but then let it do its thing.

250 is the biggest. I think I'm going to make a platform to plant that sits halfway up in the tank. This way my light won't be wasted penetrating the full depth of water. It's for a sump planted tank to recycle and reuse water. High bio loads, high light intensity, high co2. I'm not worried about algae that much as long as the water stays clean. I'm pretty sure my plant load will take care of excess nutes though.

@nabokovfan87 From what i saw they all look to be the same general type. If you can find info on one, i should be able to puzzle the rest of what they have. I'm about 8 year behind on led tech but I was on the cutting edge at the time. I would guess their cob but normally you would advertise that plus it looks like they have an extra component like a transformer or ballast. I couldn't find their type though.

@nabokovfan87 Do you by chance know if those kissils are a new kind of led? They look like cobs but there is more to them. I couldn't find cob anywhere in the specs on their site. I need deep water growth so if they are cobs or like cobs, ill probably go with them depending on diode strength.