anewbie

Not really; it is closely related to java fern; just make sure it doesn't get too much light.

Another week another water change on the upstair aquarium - still trying to decide on co2; everything seems to be growing well without co2 'cept h'ra and spiralis both plants i like but not sure i like them enough to turn on the co2. anyway a few pictures: My little prinz kleiner or maybe it is kleiner prinz is slowly growing back after nearly dying before the move. A most lovely plant i highly recommend. With co2 and strong light it has a deep wine colour leaves; here it is a little lighter in colour but the leaves are still new and plenty of time to darken: lousy photo (not sure why the phone has so much trouble with this aquarium); but my little pinto has put out a new leaf (this is a piece that rotted off the larger piece; trimmed the rot away and it seems to be growing); you can't see by the rhizome is above the substrate just the roots are in the substrate. The struggling h'ra rotala - it is growing but very slow which is ok with me as long as it keeps growing. The green stuff in it mid way down is I can never remember how to spell it - swassb or somehting like that - German word with lots of 's' and some vowels here and there. One of my little Echinodorus Iguazu is also making a strong recovery having lost all of its leaves just before the move; tough little plant. Sorry about the photo quality i really need to look into a nice digital camera cause my phone just doesn't get it right. And of course the required keyhole photo:

One of the importers noted that serious drought in brazil has killed a lot of them so collection has been significantly reduced.

Not sure - this was the review that bothered me: -- (from amazon) I'm really disappointed with this product. We were all excited to have great tasting water, I bought the mini pressure tank to use for our refrigerator, the mineral adding filter, and a refrigerator line kit. I noticed after a single glass of water that the flush would kick on after 5 minutes. You could hear quite a bit of water being wasted. Today, I decided to measure how much water is wasted. For one 16 oz glass of water, the waste produced while filling the glass does appear to be about 1/3 or 5.3 ounces of water. Perfectly acceptable. But then after 5 minutes the auto flush kicks on and runs for 1 minute. This wastes approximately 48 ounces of water. For 1 glass of water!!! Next I decided to fill a one gallon container. Again during the fill it wastes very little water. 5 minutes later the auto flush kicks on and wastes 64 ounces/half gallon of water. This is a little more acceptable, but not near their claim of 3:1. This system might be great if you planned to fill a 5 gallon container every time, but who on earth would use it this way?!?! Luckily I'm still within my return period, so sadly this thing has to go back. -- It seems to have a auto flush design that kicks in - the review make it sounds like every time you use it in a 5 minute period but i'd have to do more research ot determine actual frequency. So for example in my specific case with a drip system - so for a 1 hour period it would generate 2 gallon of ro water but auto flush would kick in 12 time and each time 48 oz per run or for 256 oz of water produced it would waste 576 oz - now in all honesty this is based on a review and i would need to do more research to figure out how the auto flush works and if it can be adjusted/configured but it raised a red flag resulting in my comment. - Also it has no di stage; this is not strictly required and in some cases useless but it can be helpful in cases where it is needed - not so much for removing a few stray particles left but removing ion for lower ph. Again this is usage specfiic.

I love pygmy cory - have like 30 in my upstairs aquarium and another 20 hastatus (closely related) in another aquarium. They are so adorable.

No switches required for a well pump - it is plug and played; the pump i have does have a switch where you can set the max pressure to run at - i have it around 40-50 psi which is the lower range. In the room upstair (office) i have a 450 and 550 on drip systems they have pressure adjusting thingy to standard faucet that then go to drippers that go into the aquarium - i have a flow thingy to measure the flow in the loop to ensure proper flow into the tank (approx 2gph; currently it is setup 50% ro and 50% tap so tds 60 in). I have a faucet next to my blackwater tank and one under the sink in the bathroom on the other side of the room so i can do manual water changes on my blackwater aquarium (~120 gallons) and ~180 gallons - i was using filtered tap for the 180 but today switched it over to ro since the cupido would prefer softer water - my full setup is this: house water -> temp control valve -> carbon block 1 -> valve -> carbon block 2 -> pipes for 'tap water' and -> ro unit -> 500 gallon tank -> well pump -> pipes so i have two set of pipes in parallel into three rooms - upstair office iwth 3 big tank - room next to machine room 'fishroom' that has some odd and end aquariums and top floor bedroom where i keep my bedroom aquarium. - Love that well pump but i suppose one day something will go horribly wrong and then i will hate it 😉

My males are 7 or 8 inches and very bulky and assertive - the females are smaller - maybe 4 but i havent' measure with a ruler. The problem is that these fishes are not passive like keyholes and i woudln't put them in the tank described above both because they are too large and too assertive. They will eat serpae tetra - my smaller females loves to catch them then rip them apart (like a hawk ripping apart a chipmunk) and then slowly eat them. i had them in a 120 and it was problematic now they are in the 550 and they are better behaved but they eat a lot. Mine were wild caught peru if that matters.

Another week some more water changes; this is the 'blackwater' aquarium - ph is 5.5 and ec is around 30. - and a critter from the bottom: Unfortunately the male - who is a bit more colourful didn't want to sit still but this female froze and I was able to capture it permanently frozen in time. Earlier in the week in another aquarium i added some cupido and this lady wanted to check it out to make sure i wasn't going to pollute her aquarium with bullies: Thankfully they are all getting along just fine: Of course the cupido are just kids and will get a bit larger. I gotta say they just love eating... eat eat eat.... - Oh no picture but i discovered three wayward shrimps in my sump. No clue how they got in their but they must have been there for at least 4 months - maybe i should just build a colony of shrimps in my sump ?

For me HTH pool fitler sand is fine - plant; add root tab; add water; watch plant grow and grow and grow. The only objection to hth pool filter sand is colour - so for fishes that dont' require ultra fine substrate i use other stuff with better colour like jungle river from caribsea or estes black substrate - only in extreme cases do you need more sophisticated 'soil' for plants - but remember many aquatic plants in the wild actually have very pure water with very little mineral content.

You can hook them up to the sink but it depends on the fitting your sink have; you can also hook them up under a sink again it depends on the fitting under the sink. For the output you can have the output go into a 30 gallon pail (or similar) and then use a pump to pump the water out of the pail or siphon it out. Just remember that 30 gallon of water weight around 250 lb; if you want auto shut off you can use a float switch and if you put a lid on the pail dust won't get into it (you can put a little hole near the top for the tubing in and the float switch); bulk reef is fairly helpful and they have a lot of video - for high efficiency but low volume unit this would be a recommended model: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/75gpd-4-stage-value-ro-di-system-bulk-reef-supply.html?queryID=ea324875ec3ba70f69cafad04a8ed27c&objectID=6241&indexName=brs_prod_m2_default_products If you want one with less waste https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/4-stage-150gpd-plus-water-saver-ro-di-system-bulk-reef-supply.html?queryID=c383253cd4a4ac217dc6c89cf0069da3&objectID=6243&indexName=brs_prod_m2_default_products Buying via home depot or lowes might make it easier to get it installed but those units will be mostly targeted for drinking water. - The number of stages depend a bit on what type of tap water you have and what you want to accomplish (soften the water or produce water for salt water or black water aquarium). - You can email bulk reef or call them and their support is pretty good at discussing what they have and what you will need to hook it up. As far as i can tell aquarium-cop does not sell ro unit. btw amazon has a bunch of less expensive units and there is nothing wrong with them but your support might be better with bulk-reef. My hookup is a little more sophisticated - i have a 200 gpd unit that fills a 500 gallon container in the basement and then uses well pump that pumps it through pipes to the upstair where i can use it with my aquariums - turn the faucet on - pressure drops and the well pump comes on. Close the faucet - pressure rises and the well pump goes off. ---- *** those little 'barrel' like things are called bladder tanks; they are self presurizing but dont' hold much water and you don't need them in most cases - the way they are designed is they hold a little water and have air at the top of them in a bladder as they fill the the pressure increases then that pressure can be used to have the water flow out of them; the bladder do wear out relatively fast in the long scheme of things and then they have to be replaced - but they are kind of neat for what they are - the biggest problem is volume - the air takes a lot of space so the amount of water is relatively small for the size of the tank **.

That order is fine - you don't have to have the di phase; and it is kind of a pia to use. With just the sediment filter and ro membrane you should see tds below 10. -- If you go with another unit (if in usa); bulk reef is the cheap route and spectrapure is the more expensive route; either way i would avoid getting a unit designed for drinking water for some of the reasons previously mentioned. - One more comment on the pressure - if i understand you got a lower rated membrane for the unit - i think you said it was 100 gpd and you went with a 50 gpd unit membrane; but that membrane might also require lower pressure (not sure).

I wouldn't buy that unit for aquarium usage; it is design for drinking water which is a different application; the way it works the waste level are way high - almost outrageous - esp if you read some of the reviews carefully. Drinking water 'ro' water is a different market with different design and constraints - they are intended for 'purification' of drinking water in area where tap water has a our taste or other issue. I suspect this is mostly true with well water; though marketing ropes in some other segments. However i wouldnt' trust one of these for critical aquarium usage; though for simply softening hard tap water they might be ok with extreme waste - i did not check into cost of service (replacing the ro filter for example - a lot of these unit use custom fitting parts so higher surcharge than your typical ro unit designed for aquarium usage). Could it be a pressure issue; forcing too much water through the membrane too fast ?

Why don't you look at the specs of the typical home ro unit used for aquariums also how is this related to @Ruud issue ? btw @Ruud ro unit are fairly straight forward; either the membrane is bad; the water is by passing the membrane or something isn't hookup right. I had a similar problem with a new ro unit and i couldn't figure out the problem so i just had the vendor replace it and that solved the issue - and at least when the membrane is new the ppm should be below 10 and generally close to 0. One other issue the pressure need to be in the range the unit requires to work properly.

Even a horrible ro system will do better than 5 bad to 1 good; the best small system does 1:1; the common system does 2:1 or 1.5:1; a very good very large system might do 0.5:1 not sure where you see 5 bad to 1 good.

not what you ask but yoyo is one of the species that it is really important to keep in a group; having said that your tank is not large for a group of 5 as they require a fair amount of horizontal space for swimming. As for dwarf cicihld most will spend a fair amount of time near the bottom; though a few will be more mid range at times during the day - even rams spend a lot of time near the bottom. keyholes and laetacara (a genus of which i recommend thayeri, araguaiae (more colourful) and curviceps). If keyhole you need to get at least 4 - the others i'd also recommend 4ish but it is not as critical. None of them are easy to sex while young if that matters. araguaiae are not tiny fishes - and the ones i had and a friend had were both larger than what most places claim - a hefty 4+ is what you should expect from males - females are smaller. in the community environment keyholes are really a good option as they are very peaceful and friendly fishes - the laetacara are more aggressive (not aggressive by aggressive standards) and much more assertive.

wrong thread ? I already answered the question why i want to know and how it is actionable; ec is e. conductivity; and most tds meters are actually ec meters in disguise.

I'm actually using a very accurate ec meter but i'm not sure how this is relevant since i can't sep gh from kh with an ec or tds meter and i'm only interested in the kh component.

Well you have to replace the media it uses for testing - at least in the ammonia test kit - i presume it is the same for hanna or is there another test kit you are thinking of ? As for the nitrate testing - this is really only something i would do a couple of times a year to address a problem - in this case i've been having issues with stabilizing the ph at a low value. Despite the tds being very low (2-3); the ph wants to remain near 7 which suggest there is some kh still left in there to stabilize it at a higher value. I did change the di the other day (it was a relative new unit - less than 2 months old) but with the latest water change my ph did drop to 5.9 so perhaps there was an issue there - i actually don't mind a bit of gh as long as kh is near 0 as the fishes in the aquarium require blackwater for biological reasons but there is some mineral in their native water - i think with the leaves decay that has been going on the past 60 days the tds in the aquarium has risen to around 25-30 of course feeding them doesn't help 😉

I'm not going to disagree or agree; but i have the ai prime blade - which is not quite the same though it is not exactly what you recommend either and i found it much better visibly with the default setting than either the wrgb2 or plant 3.0 or for that matter even the onf - i find it much more neutral both in person and from photos i've taken. One light i have not tried is the wrgb2 pro (which add white led) but it is not cost effective compared to the blade.

The only major lesson with nannacara that i found were: they are not pair forming and the female is extremely aggressive towards the male once she has precious - at least in my case a 29 is not really large enough for a pair unless the male is very robust (she didn't actually kill the male but the stress probably did; you really want hobbist bred or wc fishes not cz fishes which seem to have problems - i've been told it is how they breed the fishes for mass market but that is hersey - none the less i've had bad luck with most dwarf cichild cz fishes i've purchased and much better luck from other sources - esp wc). The pair forming issue is critical as most people don't understand how they can go from being loving couples to terror - keyholes are said to be pair forming to a fault - they form pairs for life and if one dies the other will be very sad but mine are young and i haven't enough experience with them to comment further on that aspect. After my female nannacara died i kept the male - he lived about 5 1/2 years and i was able to observe his behavior in many situation. I did get him new females (always cz because that was available) and none lasted more than 18 to 24 months - if i buy them again i will either get f1 or wc.

I think i've answered that question; the api test kit is very coarse and in some situations that coarseness makes it all but useless. Sort of like the api nitrate test; i had an aquarium that measure 0 nitrate for 6 months with extremely dense stocking. I had to get a different kit to see that there was actual nitrate (3-5ppm) being generated but bacteria was eating it. If you don't understand why it doesn't matter or how water chemistry works at the extreme level please don't repeat the same question because I think i've answered it multiple time.

Yes - i have a group of 7 kids and i find them anything but timid. These were tank raised as wc were not available at the time but still it is hard for me to believe the species is as timid as described in the literature. I find them very curious and exploratory and quite friendly. The negative is they don't have large colourful fins which most people seem to prefer but quite frankly i'd take these guys over any of the domestic inbred species of apistogramma commonly available. However as a caveat they are still young and their behavior will change as they get older so my view might change. One of my favorite fishes is nannacara anomala which i had for 5 years and he was a joy as an adult showing a lot of cleverness and adaptable behavior based on various situations.

Did the weekly water change of the upstair aquarium; which oddly i did last week - but this time i thought i would provide a slightly better picture of a plant; I think this is a nurii rosen but it almost look a bit like a pa hang whatever; some slight variation on colour patten sep the two but i think they are basically the same species: Pretty sure this is a nurii rosen: One advantage of taking a few picture i miss things i might otherwise see; in this case we see a pink jacobi growing in the middle of the nurii. No i didn't plant it there - the pink jacobi is sort of like a weed spreading runners everywhere; in this case i moved that plant when i took this picture so it is no longer in that location. My nurii do spread but very very slowly; but the pink (esp when it had co2) would spread like crazy. I can't really find much on the origin of pink jacobi but i think it is related to wenditti. And this last plant - well i'm not sure why the keyhole felt i should take a picture of it but he was quite insisted that i photograph it; not my best picture but at least he was happy as a puppy after the photograph was taken.

I have an annoying amount of extra gigantic vals i could probably put in the tank instead of throwing away.

Depending on results i might need a better ro unit or maybe i need to see if something along the water path is adding kh.