Grant

My test strips tell me it's 120ppm/6.7dKH/2.39meql this floats me between 6.0-7.0 pH. I end up dosing once a week or biweekly. I also add about half the recommended dose and that seems to be sufficient in my system. If you plan on pushing 30ppm of CO2, then you will probably need to dose more frequently/intensely. if you plan on keeping the CO2 at a lower level, then less buffer may be necessary depending on your goals. adding some crushed coral could give you a little extra buffer in case you miss a dose or life happens. lower doses of CO2 should also afford you more wiggle room in regard to buffer dosing and life events.

I've used Seachem Alkaline Buffer. Pretty straightforward stuff. I use it without their acid buffer. I would take a guess that its a blend of potassium and magnesium carbonate. the majority of Alkaline buffer looks like pearl ash (potassium carbonate) and it has a very dusty residue to it as well that reminds me of magnesium carbonate. Perhaps there is some calcium carbonate, but I would think that would leave an insoluble residue - especially as pH increases and temperature decreases. I may be wayyyy off in my analysis, and i really wish they published a chemical survey. it may just be an overpriced container of potassium carb lol. My plants respond to it as if it were a fertilizer. it does require redosing as i've caught my pH drops over time in my low tech setup. I've also noticed that it will lower my gH as well for some reason. either the plants are using it up, or there is something chemical going on. My ramshorn snails respond pretty well to it. their shells grow out much more glossy and smooth since i started dosing it. my tapwater is already fairly hard, but lacks a lot of kH. that's why i supply it. (Tulsa,OK) Baking Soda will slap your Kh up very quickly, but then you're adding a marginal amount of sodium. There can be contaminants in the soda unless it is aquarium/food specific. the soda in the baking aisle is probably the cleanest option for the price. The reef guys will use lab-grade baking soda in some instances.

I had a similar deal happen when I set up safe t sorb as a substrate. The fish I put in there, cherry barbs, white clouds, bronze cories, really didn't mind the low pH. But then, those are not the most sensitive fish in the hobby. The snails were very unhappy in such a soft system. I ended up buffering my water with seachem alkaline buffer. Interestingly, as my kH normalized, my gH also dropped a bit. Unsure what happened there. Crushed coral would probably be a more natural source of gH and kH. My 45 gal sailed like a breeze until a few months ago after a top off... I topped off the tank as usual, but then the tank clouded up later that day and I only had trouble after that. High levels of dissolved organic compounds (yellow frothy water) would keep coming, string and staghorn algae explosion, and untimely fish demise. Idk if it was chlorine in my tap (municipal city), bad dechlorinator, or the force of pouring water into the tank disrupting the balance I had going on. I get the feeling I didn't add enough declorinator as I think the city adds more chlorine in the summer when our reservoir warms up after spring. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ My other tanks are chugging along just fine though. I just evacuated my minnows, barbs, and cories into my nursery 10 gal. I'm redoing the 45 with the substrate at a 3-4 inch height (It was 7-8 inches in some places). Looking forward to getting more fish as well. Glad to see your progress on the setup! Here's some photos of just before things started going downhill.

I did not set up any with sand specifically, however i used some 2 year old carib sea floramax and some kitty litter straight on the UG filter. I can peek underneath the ten gallons and a little bit of the sand/fine particles made their way down, but it's very minimal and i'm not too concerned with the residue. The saltwater folks intentionally use sand, but they use a fiberglass mesh for window/door screens on top of their custom plenums. it's not a super fine screen, but it's just right to prevent the infiltration of sands. I used landscape fabric on the edge of the UG filter to keep gravel out. It's the same type of UG that Novak set up in his new SGA aquarium. I think if you were to go with sand, I would follow the procedure that the saltwater folks go with, but go ahead and add the truncated uplift tube. They point out that an UG filter isn't "open" enough for sand to work and has the potential for clogging. then again, they're writing in reference to their specific context of the "jaubert" method. experimenting is part of the fun! I used Ironite as the starter, but I do not recommend it as I saw a gardening topic stating that it has higher levels of arsenic present than other ferts. it also contains ammonium nitrate, which can help get the cycle moving, but then you have to wait to add fish. I only used a small amount when i started. maybe a a few tablespoons in the 45 and a tablespoon for the 10s. ---- It is strange how laterite has sort of vanished this year. it's primarily mined in india, so the pandemic may have an impact there. High Quality Akadama soil (a highly sought after ingredient in bonsai soils) is said to perform similarly. Flourite Red is supposed to work as well. I will note that the safe-t-sorb does have some iron in it. However, i believe it is locked into the baked clay as iron oxide, which needs specific bacteria to "mine" and make bioavailable. To what extent these bacteria are present in our aquariums, I have absolutely no clue. you could soak the baked clay substrate of your choice in a solution of iron and likely give the bacteria a good jumpstart from what I have ve come to understand about this process. I'm guessing a regular standard nail could accomplish something similar as this study (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19443994.2012.708204) suggests for wastewater treatment. Iron and trace elements help facilitate the process for denitrification. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0043135402003834 While our plenums set up with baked clay are not as sophisticated as a large scale reactor in public aquaria or activated sludge plant processing municipal waste, the concept should carry over if we get the right conditions we are looking for. I think this is why novak has a dash of flourish iron hooked up to his SGA aquarium auto-fill (also the plants like it) --- Bettas sure are pretty fish. Glad you've found a routine that works for you and your betta. Otos are voracious algae eaters and i believe Aquarium Co-op has changed their recommendation for algae eaters away from otos and towards hillstream loachs for their easier terms of care. Corydoras are absolutely amazing fish and the pygmies are unbelievably cute. We ordered some pygmies from aquahuna and are learning that they need to be kept warm at 72 degrees. hopefully they can get used to cooler temps with breeding/gradual changes. thanks for the cheer! Happy fishkeeping!

Hi Gideyon, I'm running a slow moving plenum on a 45 long, two 10 gallons, and a 15 gallon "pond." After my 45 long crashed and our "show" 10g struggled to balance out with a chunk of driftwood in the tank, I decided to give the plenum a try. They've been running for a few months now and it's been pretty fantastic. great plant growth and top notch water quality. I recommend the oil-dri or Safe-t-sorb over the kitty litter. the kitter litter has some raw bentonite mixed back in to assist in absorbtion of kitty refuse, but it ends up shedding a good amount of silicates in a fish tank. if your phoshates creep up (from driftwood or fish food) diatoms tend to go gangbusters until the silicates get used up. In my 45 long, all of my hair algae died when i replanted after adding the plenum with oil-dri. I was pretty baffled at the time. I couldn't grow bolbitis or any java fern beforehand as algae would overtake them pretty instantaneously. So that was a nice plus when i set it up. hair algae is starting to creep back in, but i believe it is because the plenum has run out of iron to help "take out" phosphorus and the plants cannot keep up with my generous feeding schedule. I haven't fertilized my tanks since they've been setup so I may give "leaf zone" a go as Novak recommends potassium and iron as the main fertilizer requirements in his tanks. I'm tempted to use iron gluconate and potassium gluconate supplements as "root" tabs and see where that goes. in terms of roots clogging up the filter, I have moved around some pretty good root balls out of the undergravel filter without too much fuss. as plant roots prefer to have oxygen near them, the "anoxic" zone of the slow moving plenum could help keep them from getting too extensive. otherwise, a mat of roots with water passing through them sounds like a pretty solid filter on its own. --- I think sticking to honey gourami and foregoing the dwarf gourami would be a good idea in your tank. I kept a dwarf gourami for 2 years and he attacked anything we tried to house him with. Rummynose get fairly big bodied and could crowd up a 20l, but I don't think your filtration would run out on a group of 6 or so. White Clouds and ember tetras could give you that flash of red while occupying less real-estate. I have been using a 4ft LED grow light from Lowes on the 45 long. It has very minimal blue spectrum and is rated for damp conditions. it was about $50. the downside is that it isn't as slim as aquarium lights. I have NICREW on everything else. ----- Removing the uplift tube ends up creating a "jaubert" or "monaco-style" plenum, which has been in/out of vogue with saltwater folks for around 70 years. Bob Goemans is generally responsible for bringing this style of filtration to the USA. here's his blog below. http://www.saltcorner.com/Articles/Showarticle.php?articleID=117&i=1 he also has a number of books published on the method. He mentions anecdotal success for a cichlid keeper using the method. although he advocates no uplift, he creates a plenum with a DIY method and has formalized the parameters in which it works for reefs. 1. the plenum must be less than an inch high and cover the entirety of the aquarium with no lift tube. 2. the substrate needs to be between 3-4inches. 3. "medium" grained sands/aragonite. 4. a modest amount of live rock. I think Novak's UG filter modification makes the slow moving plenum a bit more accessible as you can just slap an undergravel in there and cut a tube. oh, I just found an article on Reefs discussing their success with the UG method about 20 years ago. https://reefs.com/magazine/jaubert-s-method-the-monaco-system-defined-and-refined/ ---- Pardon the glare and algae on these photos. the ten gallon has 4 pygmy cories and 8 Celestial Pearl Danios who really didn't care to get into the picture. and the 45 long has 18 white clouds, 8 cherry barbs, and 9 bronze corydoras. I'm sure the plants are helping, but the 45 long crashed with 5 cherry barbs and 2 corydoras a few months back. Happy fishkeeping and Good Luck!

Yeah, Betty is still hanging in there. she's moderately better and we may do another active round of Maracyn. In her case, we decided that bacterial infection seemed most likely, perhaps caused by some sort of parasitic/fungal attack that we subdued with paracleanse and ich-x. But we're really just working with our best guess at this point. but I still feel like bacteria should have offed her off quicker than this. At this point. her gills are swollen. she'll take food when she can see it, but man, it's an uphill battle. we're going to rest her for a few days before looking at another round of treatments. Of note, our tap water comes out pretty good for general fish keeping. nothing is particularly out of whack (not crazy hard/soft). we started mixing RO water from a LFS with our tap for Betty, and that seemed to have helped. it softened the water a little bit. My girlfriend informed me that we started with tap in the tank and have just changed it out for RO with the 20% water changes. the Ph was getting pretty low, so we dropped a few crushed oyster shell tablets in there to help buffer the water a little. We didn't really have a hospital tank running and cycled either. We moved her sponge filter with her, so luckily we had some cycling of sorts. We also siphon up uneaten food and the snails pick up what we miss. I now intend to just pot some amazon swords and keep this tank cycled with low light running after we find resolution with betty. We're also using very dim aquarium lights (the 6 LEDs from a starter kit lid.) throughout the day, but we switch to higher light when we feed so she has an easier time seeing food. lights are off at night.

Betty is still hanging in there. Her pineconing dropped down after the round of med trio (single dose that sat for a week) followed by multiple 20% water changes about every other day for another week. as the meds passed out of the tank she got a bit better, but then we noticed inflamed gills and more lethargy. Food has been cut back due to her difficulty seeing. we tried a maracyn - ich-x combo (1 dose each and watched for 5 days) to try and rule out ich. nothing really happened and then we noticed clamped fins. Her symptoms pointed to bacterial infection even more. NOW: We're mid week of the pro-active maracyn (1 packet everyday for 5 days) with fingers crossed... additionally, the cories that were tankmates with betty are perfectly fine. and the cherry barbs they were moved into with are completely fine as well. Betty is over a year old now and we kept her fairly warm - 80F (speeds up metabolism). Although bettas are supposed to live 3 years, this may be end of life hospice care for Betty. If we were to turn back time, I think we would have full dosed maracyn the moment we brought her home. Her sight was not the best when we got her and we think that's why she made so many laps around the tank. she also did a bit of glass surfing and that was probably a red flag we should have paid attention to. hindsight is 20/20 and we are thinking of moving on to colonies of fish rather than a centerpiece pet. it's just too heartbreaking when your boy/girl fish who always emotes "good morning" starts to suffer like this.

Thank you for the reply We've fasted her on and off and supply spirulina based flake in between feedings of meatier "tropical" flake as a way to get some plant based foods into her. Her belly isn't swollen. the swelling seems like it's behind her digestive track by her swim bladder/kidneys, but I will try to get her some extra roughage and see if epsom salts could help her pass anything. I certainly fear the worse as our Gourami didn't get through a similar mystery. we got him to eat pea and garlic, but it didn't help in the end. My father kept koi and Dropsy was usually a quick sentence in those instances, but in both our Betta and Gourami, it seemed to come on slowly and carry on for a while before the end. Since we lost our Gourami, I figured I should reach out in case anyone has had similar experience with something resembling this. Update, she is still swimming her laps as she usually does and responds when I approach the tank. no change in appearance though. Her now separated corydora tank mates are fine as day.

Hi all, Just over two weeks ago, my female koi betta started showing signs of illness: low energy, swollen gills, pine coning on right side with a slightly swollen eye on the left side. during these past two weeks... She's still interested in food. we treated her with Maracyn (the full recommended dose) and Paracleanse (also the recommended dose) at the first sign of symptoms. She became more active, but the pineconing extended to her whole body. So we moved to daily aquarium salt baths at 1 tsp per gallon and 25% water changes every other day. no signs of improvement. Then a week ago, we moved on to trying ich-x with no signs of improvement. Then last Saturday, the 3rd, we moved her into quarantine and threw the med trio at her all at once and we are letting it sit for a week. her pineconing has encompassed her body now and she is distended on her right side. her left eye is still a bit swollen. she maintains an appetite and swims around still. the distention appears to be where her kidneys ought to be. her buoyancy is fine, so I don't think it is her swim bladder. What's odd about this is our dwarf gourami of 3 years suffered from the same symptoms a few months ago and his illness slowly progressed over the course of 2 months before he passed. We thought it was mostly age and his genetics as a mass produced fish, but with our betta getting sick with the same symptoms, it seems a bit odd. Our betta lived with some bronze corydoras, and they show no sign of illness, just their same wiggly selves. before all this we dewormed the fish twice and nitrates never crept past 40ppm. no ammonia or nitrites ever. We feed bug bites tropical and spirulina formula small amounts daily. GH: ~150 KH: ~120 Ph:~6.8-7.2 Temp: ~80F Could this in fact be age/genetic fragility, and ornamental Anabantoidei just lose kidney function over time? Can Ich become internal or hide under scales and develop symptoms like dropsy? Thank you for your time and any replies. Best, G