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mbecker6294

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Posts posted by mbecker6294

  1. Sorry for the obvious sarcasm. Tank has been up and running about 6 months. Started off great and plants were doing well. Couldn't keep fish alive, PH was spiking. Used Eco Complete for substrate. Talked with Caribsea and they told me that some batches get calcium deep in their pours and then it can start leaching out.  I'd rather not dump the whole thing and start again. No fish, no nitrates, GH 150, KH 120, PH 8.4  Will Easy Carbon work on this???

    algae.jpg

  2. Hey guys, I think I may have figured out the issue. The tank is many years established and has plenty of biological filtration. Nitrites running at zero with a moderate bio load. Something has to be a nitrate pump. The fluval biomax has been running a long long time, like 10-15 years. Breaking down ammonia and nitrite like a champ, but do you think the pores have collected enough detritus and food over the years that even though I rinse them off in tank water from time to time, can the media be acting as a nitrate pump?

  3. HOB has 3 sponges, two are newer that I was establishing for setting up a new micro tank, 50 micron cloth, Chemipure easy green, and fluval biomax that has been running for over 12 years. when I clean the filter, I only rinse the media in dechlorinated water, so I would think there should be plenty of bacterial filtration.  Don't have any ammonia test strips, didn't think necessary to have for an established tank, but wondering if there could be ammonia in my tap water?  Only thing I can think of that would convert to nitrate so quickly.  Has anyone else come across this?

  4. I have a well established 35Gal tank that I've converted over to live plants. Fish and plants seem to be happy, but wanted to start tracking water parameters.  Have 3 inches of inert pea sized river gravel, and have been using EG and root tabs. Water parameters with Tetra easy strips are reading:

    Nitrate    Nitrite    GH    Total Chlorine    KH    PH
    20              0.5       150         0                  40    7.8
    80              0          150         0                120    6.8

    The top row of numbers is my tap water, 2nd row from tank.  I've done two 25% water changes since 4 days ago and Nitrates still at 80ppm.  Have stopped dosing with EG until the nitrates are consumed.. Any other water parameters above I should be concerned with? I'm nervous about the tap water having 20ppm on the nitrates and have thought about installing RO/DI.  Thoughts??

    I clean the HOB filter media sponges and water polishing cloth as to not build up organic waste. Dechlorinate with API Proper PH 7.0 on weekly 25% water changes

    tank.jpg

  5. I’m trying out the chemi green, mostly to pull out the Yanni discoloration from some new driftwood decorations. I did soak them 2 weeks prior to putting in the tank, but still made my water brownish. The chemi green has removed much of the discoloration, but not all. So I don’t think it’s as aggressive at pulling nutrients out of the water as chemi pure. Plants still seem to be thriving. Will update in a month. Using easy green monthly and root tabs

  6. Been fish keeping a long time, almost exclusively salt.  Recently inherited a 35Gal Hex with glow fish, angels, and Julii cats.  Was looking to add some live plants, and have recently purchased a Nicrew Classic LED G2 and Nicrew Classic LED Planted Plus lighting system, don't know which one i'll keep.  My question is with standard pea sized stone already in the tank, didn't want to switch out substrates, would I simply use the easy green and the easy root tabs?  Also, I typically do weekly 10% water changes and have been vacuuming half the gravel bed.  I'm assuming with the root tabs and live plants that means no more to the gravel vacuuming?

    Thanks

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