DShelton
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Posts posted by DShelton
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I bought my microworm culture from Taylor (aka SimplyBetta). They were pheap (5$) from her, and great culture. I kept them going for ~18 months. I no longer needed them and gave them to a fellow hobbyist.
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Apologies for the thread necro, but it seems like the most logical place for the question, versus a new thread.
I have seen several posts with dimensions of the body of the heaters, and a statement to the effect that the cord is 11.8" long. Does anyone using these heaters know the length of the cable is between the heater body and the temperature controller, and the length from temperature controller to the plug?
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On 7/4/2021 at 9:08 PM, Trish said:
13" MacBook Pro Mid 2012 Best laptop I've ever owned, I bought it new maxed out, one year past new in the box. It gave me 8 yrs and was a true workhorse. Unfortunately the motherboard fried and would cost $1000 to replace and still not be guaranteed. I replaced it with a 15" Retina 2015. The mid 2012's are still sought after as they were the last of the upgradable laptops. Treasure yours! @DShelton
Yeah mine has a wonky behaving SATA controller. I think I am going to send it to Louis Rossmann and see what it will take to repair it.
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On 7/3/2021 at 2:36 PM, Trish said:
MacBook Pro 13' Mid 2012,
I have mine still sitting on the desk and am considering still considering going back to it. I 'upgraded' to a 2017 12" Macbook, and regret it every time I touch this garbage keyboard.
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On 7/1/2021 at 1:19 PM, Odd Duck said:
North Richland Hills
@Odd Duck 817 here, Arlington/Mansfield.
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On 7/2/2021 at 8:39 AM, bettatester said:
I know that crushed coral raises Ph over time. However, I was wondering how much does it ultimately raise the Ph? I know that different water conditions will effect this, but what might be a ballpark figure? For example if I need to raise a Ph of 6.5 to 7, about how long would that take? Would it get to 7? Would it stop at 7 when it got there?
That is a pretty tough question to give an exact answer to. It depends on a huge number of factors. The pH of the source water, % water change, frequency of water changes, KH, GH, plant load, and total water volume, just to name a few.
The approach that @Colu listed above is sound. If you are starting with a slightly acidic solution start with a small amount of crushed coral/aragonite and give it a few days to adjust.
As an example, I have a 30cm pea puffer tank with Fluval Stratum as the substrate and filtered with a matten 30ppi matten filter. When I cycled the tank with just plants and substrate, the pH of the tank was ~6.4 (source tap water is 8.2). Before i put fish in it, I added about 300grams of crushed coral in a filter bag behind my matten filter. Within 48 hours, the pH of the tank was ~7.2, and it has remained that for the last 6 months or so.
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On 7/2/2021 at 6:56 AM, Bettakeeper86 said:
What is an acceptable range of ammonia? My tank is currently at 0.25 ppm. Should I do a water change? All other perimeters are perfect.
What is the pH, and temperature of the water? If the pH is ~7, then, as @tonyjulianohas said, most of the 'ammonia' is actually ammonium. Only the free ammonia, 'actual NH3' is toxic to fish (I mean ammonium is too, but not at aquarium concentrations.). The chemistry that the API test kit utilizes for the ammonia test, is detects combined ammonia/ammonium concentration so we have to rely on the pH and temperature to approximate the actual free NH3 concentration.
The following web page built by a faculty member at Iowa State will do the math for you. http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~jea/w3-research/free-ammonia/nh3.html
If you want to do the math yourself, this paper will walk you through it:
https://floridadep.gov/sites/default/files/5-Unionized-Ammonia-SOP_1.pdfIf you want to utilize his calculator, you can make the assumption that ppm == mg/liter. That assumption is slighlty flawed, but only ever so slightly. 0.998859 is the approximate density/specific gravity of water at ~20 - 25 C) and the the actual conversion is: mg/liter = ppm * 0.998859
I assumed your water temp was ~25C and running your .25ppm ammonia/ammonium through the calculator with an assumption of pH 8.2 to get an approximate free ammonia concentration of 0.0207 mg/liter (ppm).
Cheers,
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On 7/2/2021 at 8:00 AM, Phantom240 said:
That's pretty interesting, so what form of nitrogen does cryptocoryne use to grow?
Ammonia/Ammonium
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On 6/30/2021 at 9:10 PM, NanoNano said:
I see references on Reddit's r/plantedtanks of people using yeast somehow as a Co2 source. Could I ask someone to explain that option as well?
Absolutely yeast/sucrose (classic fermentation) was one of the first DIY CO2 systems and is by far the cheapest of them since the reactants are cheap and available at the grocery store. This was the DIY system that poor college kids could afford way back int the day. Honestly it works great, but you have to be really careful to not gas your tank with CO2 or explode the plastic bottle and spew yeast/sugar everywhere. Other than that, it has a couple of problems that make it less desirable than the citric acid/bicarbonate reactors:
- One of the byproducts of the reaction from the yeast is ethanol, which becomes toxic to the yeast at certain concentrations, so the reaction kills itself over time, usually before all of the sucrose is consumed.
- There is no real easy way to control the reaction, i.e. turn it off and on with the light cycle. Once the yeast/sugar are mixed in water, the only way the reaction stops is the alcohol kills the yeast, or the yeast run out of food and stop producing CO2.
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On 6/27/2021 at 11:21 PM, Steve A said:
I just finished a 2 week process of deep cleaning my substrate but I still have nitrates showing 80.
Will plants handle this high of nitrates and help use it up?
Another problem is that my GH is still over 190 ppmIt depends on your plants. Hornwort is particularly good at sucking up nitrates, so are many of the other stem plants, like wisteria and water sprite.
Some other plants Cryptocoryne sp. for example do not effectively utilize nitrate as a nitrogen source. The plant will uptake the nitrogen and store it, but not utilize it for new plant growth, eventually it gets to a toxic amount in the plant, and the plant will die back.
The advice above about water changes is solid. As long as your source water does not have any nitrate in it, each 50% water change will cut the nitrate concentration in half. A couple of those kinds of water changes will soon have the nitrate concentration under control.,
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On 6/30/2021 at 2:45 AM, CT_ said:
One thing that I think should work but I'm not sure anyone has tried, is to add a bicarbonate salt and an acid into their tank. it should form CO2 but salts would also accumulate so you'd have to do more water changes (not sure if that means every hour or every week, I haven't done the math).
There are some great DIY systems that do just this. The reactants are usually citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. They work by siphon and sucking one reactant (citric acid) into a vessel containing the bicarbonate, producing CO2. With systems like this, since they work off of the siphon, you can control the reaction by shutting off the CO2 flow to the tank (i.e. manually with a valve, or automatically with a solenoid).
There are a couple of DIY ways to do this, one using a manifold and solenoid:
https://www.dudegrows.com/my-diy-co2-setup/
Another way is to use some 2 port bottle caps for 2l soda bottles, a pressure gauge. a valve and some Tygon® tubing. Wikihow has a great article, and the kits are cheap on amazon or fleabay.
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-CO2-Reactor-for-an-Aquarium
There is also a commercial stainless steel bottle that you can buy, mix the acid/water/bicarbonate in the bottle, and the reaction pressures the stainless bottle, it is then controlled with a regulator and a solenoid like a traditional CO2 bottle. I think both Dennerle and JBL make one, but there is an FZone one on amazon that is cheaper than the big brands.
https://www.amazon.com/FZONE-Aquarium-Generator-Regulator-Diffuser/dp/B08ZLVQ5L5
These systems are cheaper than commercial CO2 systems, and refilling them is pretty cheap too. Both the citric acid and the bicarbonate are really cheap in bulk. I used a system like the one shown on the wikihow site for a few years on a 60cm tank and had to change the reactants every three weeks or so.
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On 6/30/2021 at 2:13 AM, Craziiininja said:
is this black diamond blasting sand safe for African cichlid tank?http://media.tractorsupply.com/is/image/TractorSupplyCompany/3905403_A1
It is heat fused coal slag, so it is chemically inert, just like the pool sand that you have been using. The only issue that I have ever seen with it, last bag i bought had lots of residual organics in it. I soaked my bag in buckets for 2 or 3 weeks changing water daily before the organic 'oil slick' was gone from the surface of of the water.
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On 6/9/2021 at 10:12 PM, Fish Folk said:
Crushed Coral will slowly raise the KH and GH in your aquarium. I think that somewhere here the Co-Op has recommended 1 lb. of crushed coral in substrate or in a suspended mesh bag per 10 gal. of aquarium water.
If your source water is acidic, or only slightly basic. It will also raise the pH. The amount depends on your starting point.
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On 6/7/2021 at 8:24 PM, aehageman said:
Laterite seems to come from India, so I reached out... It seems to be their sand! Maybe after some research, my friend will mail me a bag of dirt from his yard? If we are lucky.
I just realized lava rock from the store is high in iron. Could be why my tanks do so well so easily? Besides me that is LOL!
I am looking at tumblers and other mechanical ways to smooth the lava rock and now to make it pebble size!!
The point of the laterite is the iron?Yes, the laterite in the plenum config (i also use it in Walstad tanks) is an iron source. Brightwell aquatics still sells it. Last I bought came from them via Amazon.
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I bought some "Zebra Stone" from manzanita-driftwood.com that i believe is just black quartz. It comes from Southern California/Northern Baja Mexico I think: http://manzanita-driftwood.com/10lb-zebra-stone/
It is a bit pricey, but it is definitely more black than Seiryu. The pieces that I got had almost zero brown in them. I will take a picture of them wet so you can look at them.
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If it is it just anoxic (i.e. really low O2 concentration 2ppm or less), and not anaerobic (no oxygen), then the gas could also be N2.
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You can get a similar air pump from amazon.co.uk, and it looks just like the COOP pump except it is a different color. If it is the same electricals inside, then it uses .33W. You could easily power that with a USB battery (like a battery pack to recharge your phone) and keep a spare battery pack to switch for the used one.
I did some math a math in another thread for someone that was going to use one the COOPs USB pumps to run a sponge filter in an office building that was having a power outage over the weekend. Even a small USB battery should be able to run that pump for considerable amount of time. The thread is here:
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What is the pH in the tank(s)?
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Yup, I have a sponge ready for my newest tank and canister. Similar forgot that I have it.
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They have uploaded to their YT channel all of their sessions so far (all except the one about the electric fishes). Search the YT for the "Amazon Research Center for Amazon Fishes" if you are looking for their channel.
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I would put a sponge on the intake strainer, so that I would only rarely have to open the canister to disturb its media, but definitely do not change the poly-fil.
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Multi as in Neolamprologus multifasciatus? If so, yeah it is fine as long as the rock structures will not collapse when they dig through your substrate, meaning the rocks are on the bottom of the tank, and then the substrate is added.
(the first thing that comes to my mind with 'multi' is Synodontis multipunctatus, sorry if I guessed wrong.)
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It really depends on how you are moving, and what your setup will look like in the new location.
I have driven my fish (Neolamprologus) back in the day (in 18gallon rubbermaids with battery operated air pumps (USB did not exist then) for about 700ish miles (NE Texas to SE New Mexico and then back to SW Texas later) and they weathered the move just fine. If I were moving as far as you, assuming I could get the new tanks setup at the new location ahead of time, I would bag and ship the fish to new address. If that is not practical, I would give/sell them locally and then buy new tanks/fish when I got settled in the new location.
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Can you share more about your marine tank? What fish are you planning in keeping? Are you doing fish only with live rock (FOWLR) or is this just a pure marine tank with the canister? Other than time, there is no difference in cycling a cold water aquarium and a tropical aquarium. The bacteria can live at those temps, it just takes them longer to populate.
I have done something like this (25 years ago), but I used an undergravel filter with crushed coral and an Eheim (king of the canisters IMO) canister. I 'seeded' the tank (30gallon long) with ~10# of live rock from my reef tank and then kept it as fish only. I did not have a chiller, but I did have access to a room that was kept at a constant 15 ℃ ± .5°. So with all of the electricals in the tank, the water never got above 17 ℃
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Aquarium Co-Op 100 Watt Heater
in General Discussion
Posted
Perfect, thanks @Cory