anewbie
-
Posts
2,681 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1 -
Feedback
0%
Content Type
Forums
Downloads
Store
Events
Blogs
Gallery
Profiles
Posts posted by anewbie
-
-
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:
-
2
-
-
On 11/4/2023 at 7:11 PM, Guppysnail said:
Ok I’m so jealous. I’ve waited for the hastatus to start coming in again. Finally found a source that **might*** have them for me next week.
Im stunned how much these are going for these days. I bought them when I was a few decades younger for 35 cents a piece. Now going rate on the east coast us 8-11$ each 🤯One of the importers noted that serious drought in brazil has killed a lot of them so collection has been significantly reduced.
-
1
-
-
On 11/4/2023 at 7:06 PM, Sarina said:
Cory himself recommends this unit, and the waste water issue can easily be resolved by increasing water pressure. Drinking water RO units are not any different filtration from the ones made for aquariums, the technology is the same and the resulting water is 0-20TDS.
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.
-
1
-
-
On 11/4/2023 at 6:09 PM, tolstoy21 said:
@anewbie Sweet! I do something similar, but I use a Kasa plug to trigger the pump to send water up a story in my house. I have mine plumbed directly into my aquarium (I only have one display tank in the house so I figured why not just go directly in), but I do really like the idea of triggering the pump via pressure changes. Do you have this wired up to something like a square D pressure switch?
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 😉
-
1
-
1
-
-
On 11/2/2023 at 10:39 PM, Odd Duck said:
Festivums are generally very peaceful cichlids, seem content as solos, and are much more top water to mid water. Striking angled black stripe and some varieties come in soft or deeper colors. Not crazy bright colors, but not only the “normal” white. They only get to about 4”-6” usually (some say males get to 8” but I’ve never seen one even close to that big). They are peaceful enough to keep with much smaller fish since they also have a fairly small mouth. One would be a very striking centerpiece fish in a 46 G. I have a pair and the larger female bullies the smaller male even though he was rehomed for bullying the previous owners angels. He bullies no one nowand she only bullies him, although she has become the tank boss over the extremely wimpy 9” and 10” Jack Dempsey pair. She doesn’t bully them at all, she just doesn’t give ground if they try to push her away. They’re both visible in this picture - him on the left, her on the right above the silver dollars. Ignore the BBA on the lucky bamboo, I do. 😝 I should get an SAE for this tank. 😂
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 ?
-
2
-
-
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.
-
On 11/4/2023 at 5:44 AM, Guppysnail said:
First off my plumbing skills are less than zero and have proven to cause more damage than help. It’s the only home improvement skill my wonderful husband does not have.
We are not rich and this economy is rough.
Second I am not looking to remineralize entire tanks worth I need roughly 50 gallons or so a week I’ve been buying distilled 25 gallons / week and mixing with my liquid rock tap however my new fascination with dwarf cichlids is making that crazy expensive so I just need to mix with my tap being able to use more affordably would be greatPlumbers here are insane we had to have a faucet replaced and the plumber quoted us $700
We went with a fly by night kid instead with something that will potentially spew water non stop Like this RO I would not trust that
1-can I screw an RO system on a hose when needed then unhook and put away when done?
2-is it worth it to get the DI thingy? Do I need the barrel thing that looks like a propane tank?
3 is this one any good?
4- if not is there one for 250$ or under that is?
5- how do i install if I cannot hook a hose to it
6- if I can’t screw it in a hose how do these things go in and could the Three Stooges install is safely
7 do I need to install a faucet
8 all the other 800 things I don’t even know to ask please.
9 how often does that membrane need replaced and roughly how much are they?
10 do I need to bypass my water softener to use this?
11- this will be on a second floor so I cannot do one of those big rain barrel things either how long does it take to get 1 gallon of water?@Sarina ???
ok how about this one hubby wants this one because we drink it and our cats drink it my tap is not fit to drink at 25-35 nitrates 🤢
I definitely want a lower waste water one please.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/A-O-Smith/5014008553or any of the ones from Lowe’s $300 or less since they will install
Im happy to fill a few gallon jugs a day and hold them until water change day. No different than the 25 gallons I buy at the store each week 🤯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:
If you want one with less waste
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 **.
-
1
-
-
On 11/4/2023 at 7:58 AM, Ruud said:
SO thanks for all the responses.... in all fairness I think my best bet is to just toss it away and get a run of the mill home unit which runs me back about 100 euro.
So the unit is bought new - but not getting any of my hopes up in getting the shop or the seller help me out here. This is Spain, not USA.
The unit came with the following setup : Sediment -> Carbon -> RO membrane -> Resin. I swapped the membrane and the whole filter setup for a replacement package (4.4 stars on amazon) that would give me the setup: Sediment -> granulated Carbon -> RO membrane -> pressed Carbon
For the comment on the missing resin, I swopped the last carbon back to the Resin of the original set.... and get 315PPM readings, so even worse. I have a lot of rejected water, less when I put the pump on at 80PSI. The set says it needs a pressure of 60-90PSI.
Again the system came fully hooked up so somewhere I think I just have a faulty system and perhaps my best bet with least headache is getting me something similar from our local home depot equivalent and see if that's a solution or not.
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).
-
On 11/4/2023 at 1:24 AM, Sarina said:
This is the unit I want someday lol. The TDS meter in the faucet is so cool!
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).
On 11/4/2023 at 8:28 AM, Ruud said:Yup RO membranen is installed, brand new 50GPD unit. I have looked at the plumbing a 100 times... I can't find anything wrong, everything seems the way it needs to be. The manual and the diagram is super basic but looks to be exactly as is. I'm lost
Could it be a pressure issue; forcing too much water through the membrane too fast ?
-
On 11/3/2023 at 6:40 PM, Galabar said:
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.
-
On 11/3/2023 at 3:18 PM, Galabar said:
My understanding is that an RO system will generate 5 gallons (or more) of "reject" water for each gallon of "good" water produced. Is that what you are experiencing?
Most of your water should be going down the drain (or to your garden?) for an RO system...
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.
-
1
-
-
On 10/30/2023 at 12:58 PM, _Eric_ said:
I wouldn’t count on deals at aquashella unless you are around close to closing and folks are wanting to sell things rather than pack them. I have seen some good deals at shows but folks still have to cover the costs of the shows and I would guess Aquashella isn’t the cheapest.
wrong thread ?
On 10/30/2023 at 12:43 PM, Galabar said:Yes, this. There seems to be no practical application to what you are trying to do.
However, sometimes folks just want to do something and I can respect that. 🙂
Again, my suggestion would be to start with a TDS meter. If that is very low, then you can be pretty sure there is almost nothing in your water, including KH.
I may have missed it, but what does your EC meter read?
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.
-
1
-
-
On 10/30/2023 at 10:05 AM, dasaltemelosguy said:
It's a little more convoluted but once you do the conversion, it's very accurate to use the ohm settings in a common multimeter to measure TDS. A cheap ohm meter like this:
...will give you an ohm reading that you then can convert to siemens or TDS directly using an online calculator like this one:
Conductivity convertor, Siemens into TDS PPM and MHO (lenntech.com)
or;
The trickiest part is making sure the distance between the probes is precise and constant. The value will fluctuate greatly if the probes move, or the water is in motion. I think the calculators above use 1CM as their standard. Make sure the ohm meter can measure 2 megaohms or higher.
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.
-
On 10/30/2023 at 9:37 AM, Biotope Biologist said:
I think a Hanna or similar electric test will be your best bet for this application.
If the $80 is too rich for your blood, you can break it down into you have to buy $14 nitrate kits every 8-12 months, after ~5 years the Hanna will have paid for itself. They last a long time with very little maintenance required.
Then you might just carry it around and zap random bodies of water, muttering “interesting, interesting results” to yourself and never using that practical knowledge anywhere 😋
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 😉
-
On 10/14/2023 at 10:07 AM, Mmiller2001 said:
Is there a reason you are set on this particular light? The reason I ask is the spectrum on the prime is going to leave you an over yellow washed out look on the fish and plants. With high yellows, you loose contrast.
You want the spectrum to look like this.
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.
-
1
-
-
On 10/30/2023 at 7:39 AM, Guppysnail said:
Both these and keyhole cichlids are on my someday list. I hope you share more of your experience with them so I can learn.
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.
-
1
-
-
On 10/29/2023 at 4:14 PM, Galabar said:
If you have a low TDS, and you test with an API test kit and it changes color after one drop, again why?
You keeping saying that you want to measure a low KH value. However, you never state that you actually need to measure one or the practical application of measuring one.
You can probably spend a lot of money to try to measure it, but again, why?
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.
-
On 10/29/2023 at 3:50 PM, Ruud said:
Key hole (?) Ciclids... I had them in my first tank, very underrated fish but lovely nonetheless!
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.
-
1
-
-
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.
-
2
-
-
I have an annoying amount of extra gigantic vals i could probably put in the tank instead of throwing away.
-
1
-
-
On 10/28/2023 at 8:49 PM, Galabar said:
Why? What would be the practical application of that knowledge?
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.
Not sure what to do (new plant)
in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
Posted
Not really; it is closely related to java fern; just make sure it doesn't get too much light.