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Tom G

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Everything posted by Tom G

  1. I know it’s harmless to the fish. I just want to fertilize the substrate, not the water column… and avoid the mess as it dissolves. Guess I’ll just stick with easy green!
  2. So, without fail, every time I insert root tabs into substrate my clown loaches dig them up and play with the dissolving gel caps. They actually seem to really enjoy digging them up. I don’t appreciate the wasted root tab! Anyone else experience this? All the white mess is what once was the green gel cap.
  3. Does this look like a male or female?
  4. I have a 20 gallon tall well planted tank. Lots of driftwood too. There's 9 cardinal tetras, and one female (I think) full grown apistogramma cacatuoides. She's a longtime widow from another tank, actually. I want to 2 more juvenile apistogramma cacatuoides that are hopefully male and female. Two questions... How I determine the sex of the juvenile apistos? And, will the adult leave the juveniles alone, or likely to bully them? Don't want to drop $50 just to watch the youngsters get pushed around. Thanks all! See pic. Growing out new plants, and waiting for driftwood mold to run it's course too.
  5. Yep no chance of cooking fish if it fails to even heat the tank. a Fluval rep told me this that the heater failing to get to temp is what’s supposed to happen. Said solution was to buy a second heater or heat my basement. Unbelievable.
  6. Today I installed a Fluval 300W E Series in my 75 gal tank. Tank is in my basement where room temp is about 67 degrees. I set the heater to 81 degrees and water temp never rose above 77 degrees, all day. I researched this heater a bit and discovered it can’t heat water more than 10 degrees warmer than the ambient room temp. See video about 2 minutes in. Am I understanding this correctly? This seems amazing to me. I have an old Marineland heater and it’ll warm that water to anything I choose, it doesn’t care what the room temp is and nor should it!
  7. Yes, the bypass on my softener is there. And, I'm using it. Problem is that the GH and KH are off the charts w/well water. And the water is 50 degrees as it bypasses the water heater too. Solution right now though is two 32 gallon garbage cans, a portable RO filter and a 20 gal spare tank w/a heater. I've made about 60 gallons of RO water, kept in the garbage cans. I mix the RO with well water 50/50 in the 20 gal tank, with a heater. Use that for small water changes on my 75 gal. If I need a big WC, I just drop a heater in a garbage can, mix that 50/50 with the well water and I'm good. Seems to be working fine. I just run the RO filter over night from the well and it's working.
  8. I don’t require the rust remover so will let the current salt run it’s course and use pure sodium going forward. But that will take a few months.
  9. So, here's what I decided to do... First, the salinity tester I bought says my softened tap water is 650 ppm (0.06%) sodium. I've read that anywhere between 200 ppm and 1000 ppm is totally fine for drinking water. I'm also assuming that it would be fine for fish. But, two items are of concern for me still: 1.) I have a rust remover additive in my softener's sodium pellets and I've researched that it's basically a citric acid additive. I don't want that in my aquarium. 2.) My intention is to grow a lot of plants (even more than I'm interested in fish, at least right now). And my softened tap water has no calcium carbonate or magnesium – which are good for plants – as that's what's replaced with sodium. So, I've decided to simply use hard water straight from my well. It's really hard 500ppm GH 240 ppm KH. I'm simply going to use Fluval peat moss in my canister filter and see how this goes. Thinking I can add Seachem Purigen to the filter as well to remove the brown color from the peat moss. And ultimately even mix the well water with distilled water only if I need to (maybe 5 store bought gallons added to my 75 tank like one a month or so). This is what I'm testing now. But all said, if I didn't want to grow plants, and didn't have the citric acid issue, I'd be fine using my straight softened tap water for fish keeping.
  10. I think we have a good hypothesis here tolstoy21. The salinity tester will tell a lot. I need to see if Easy Green will replace the calcium, magnesium and other minerals as well... Some fun experiments coming up!
  11. I’m going to test for sodium with the tester I posted. Guessing sodium is negligible. Then stand up a little 20 gallon tank for a while with same build, but smaller of course, as I plan for my 75 and see if softened water is a problem. Will dose for other nutrients - for plants and fish (more worried about plants). I’m betting you’re 100% right, @tolstoy21. We shall see.
  12. I just brought this to test my water... Digital Salinity Tester for Salt Water - Waterproof IP67 Salinity Meter with ATC Large Range 0-200ppt Saltwater Tester for Seawater, Aquariums, Marine Monitoring, and Koi Fish Pond by ORAPXI https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08GC7JCV3/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_8Xp5FbW8KP6K1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
  13. Me too! I may stand up a test 10 or 20 gallon tank with my softened water just to experiment before I set up my 75. Might be only option. The bypass on my softener is an option, but the ware is hard rusty and has odors w/out the treatment.
  14. Yes, conventional water softener. I could use potassium but don't for cost reasons. From a tap water standpoint, my softened water is excellent, no complaints. Additionally, I have an RO system that is used for drinking only. I don't think it can produce enough RO water to support my 75 gallon tank. And, I tested the RO water parameters. Exact same as my softened water PH and a bit less GH. The KH with RO is very low (0) which concerns me me as well With RO, I'm really going to be dosing my aquarium water and hoping I can maintain the PH. At least that what I think...?
  15. Does anyone have experience with water softeners for well water? I’m worried the softener is putting too much sodium in the tap water for plants. May not be good for low/med light plants I’m planning to buy here. I’m confident I can add back the other minerals needed with frets. But no clue about the sodium. My tap water parameters are... 7 dPH, 7 or 8 dGH, KH is high - well over 200 ppm. I’ve not set up tank yet. Will be a 75 gallon tho. Lots of vals, crypts and octopus tho. Anyone with experience in this area? I live in MI. So hard, rusty water if I went straight from well. I don’t want to do that. Happy holidays!
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