OnlyGenusCaps

I have been infected by both staghorn and black beard. I've been able to control with H2O2 a bit, though it's hard on some plants like lilies. Warning semi-related rant below, not necessarily part of advice for OP: Neither of these alga are ones you are just going to get from your local environment. This means in my mind they are contaminants that arrive from poor quality, often plant, sources. In truth, I'm noting where I've gotten them from and not buying from those sources again. If you get either of those on a plant, don't but from that place again! That's the root of the issue in my mind. My tank that has these, I've decided to scrap, clean thoroughly, start filtration fresh, and not have plants. This is the first time I've been infected with these types of algae. Not worth the fight in my mind.

Well, I mean socks are sort of like that. I want one that washes itself. 😉

Might already be here, but a self washing filter sock would be awesome!

Well water is weird for sure. Thanks for sharing that! I'm on a well, which is nice in terms of not having to deal with dechlorinator. But we are fairly hard here, about 325 mg/L. Quite a bit of iron in there too. But still I feel pretty lucky. We don't have much Mg which is harder to deal with in some ways. Also we live just outside of a PFAS plume, and I'm wildly glad I don't have to deal with that stuff! Plus, just a bit north of us everyone has a surprising amount of As in their water. We've got none. So, I agree variability seems to be the order of the day for well water. Interesting they don't pool the water and treat in in State College. The cities in well around here typically combine sources and treat it as a unit. I wonder why the difference? Sadly the answer to that is far, far more about municipal water treatment practices than I am familiar with.

I believe a loop for airline PVC is meant to equalize pressure across the system. In a linear setup, the pressure can decrease from the first to the last tap, significantly, depending on the number of active taps you have. When a loop is used the pressure can be corrected from both sides, and it reduces the effects of this. If you think you might have a lot of air to bleed off, then I suspect it's less likely to be an issue for you.

I don't know what Cory uses, and I suspect there is variation depending on the bulkhead you are using. I've been doing a bunch of 1" bulkheads recently and I use a 45mm diamond hole saw. You might be able to check the recommended size of hole from wherever you bought your bulkheads. Sorry, I can't be of more help.

If your RO is working well, and your TDS is very, very low, it will often measure slightly acidic. Water itself is of neutral pH, but has a low buffering capacity as you point out, so once exposed to air the pH tends to drop. This is because CO2 becomes dissolved, particularly at cooler temperatures. So, if you fill your aquarium with RO water and have nothing to buffer it, your pH will tend to be on the acidic side. This of course can be good or bad depending on your inhabitants - though I tend to agree with folks that argue precise specificity of pH to match the fish's natural habitat is not likely necessary under most circumstances.

Agreed Tropheus can be incredible! They are on my list long term. I prefer a single species colony myself. Once my silly tank gets in (everything seems to take longer during the pandemic!), I'm going to be setting up a 280 with Chindongo saulosi. Not sure if these are too "common" or too "beginner" for you, but the males are blue, and juveniles as well as females are yellow. Two distinctly beautiful fish for one species! Anyhow, that's the direction I am going right now. But if you go with any Tropheus species, please post about it here, as I'll be very interested!

So rosy but not cherry? Is that the temperature requirement difference? I suppose the I would be concerned about the size rosy barbs can attain. I've not had them, so don't know, but what I read online is like 13-15cm (6ish inches). If so, I fear that's just too big.

Ooh, Xiphophorus. That is an interesting idea! I do like fish that can be a sustaining population in my care. I prefer species, but that's worth looking into.

Good question! I'm looking at things that would be right around that size. Like a half barrel sort of thing.

I do worry that around here the pond, even if indoors, might get to warm for white clouds. How sensitive are they to higher temps? What do folks think about the possibility of cherry barbs? I think the red would look cool and perhaps even from above. Like little red goldfish.

Drats, I've been had! 🤪

I suspect you are kidding as that was about the most innocuous joke I can think of. Functionally equivalent of you telling me to have bunch of linebackers stand in the spot. That said, by virtue of the fact I am responding like this, if you are pulling my leg, you have gotten me. I'll admit it, and concede.

I do love this day. I tell one that I've pulled. A few years back, I was engaged and my fiancée decided to hand write all the invitations, painstakingly, in calligraphy. It took her weeks of work. She proudly mailed them off on March 31st, and was going out of town on April 2nd. She was driving and had to head out early on April 2nd to make it to her destination. This was a poor choice of timing on her part. I proceeded to spend the day of April 1st making a very good replica of the "sorry we missed you" form which informed her that 90+% of the invitations were "undeliverable" because the address were "unreadable". It also informed her that she needed to pick them up the next day (remember she's leaving town early that day) after 10am. As we drove home, I pulled up to the mailbox, grabbed the mail and handed it to her. With a bit of slight of hand, I was able to slip the fake form into the middle of the stack of mail seamlessly. By the time we had pulled into the drive she was audibly crying. I yelled out "April Fools!" It still took me 15 minutes to convince her it was me who made the form and not my trying to make her feel better about the situation. *As a quick aside, she married me anyway. She even kept the fake form and still trots it out to explain why she doesn't do pranks with me.

So, I just recently watched the Tazawa Tanks YT vid on his DIY office pond (I think I can mention him here - Zenzo is apparently sponsored by AqCOOP). It was really inspiring! And it seems like an easy build. I can handle picking out an interesting emergent plant that won't take over easily. But, it got me thinking about the fish selection. Zenzo used guppies, but you can't really appreciate their tails very well from above. In general, the fish that are selected for, and bred in, the hobby are selected for how they look from the side. The expectation being we'll look at them in glass boxes. But the mini indoor pond, you can really only appreciate them from above, and with the exception of koi, that's not really how we normally select fish. So, I pose to you knowledgeable CARE community, what fish do you think would be a good choice for a similar setup where you can really only enjoy your fish from above? There are some restrictions. The most restrictive is probably size - this is a mini pond, so no koi , goldfish, or rift lake cichlids. A setup like this will likely always be unheated - so perhaps a wide temperature tolerance as it goes from being warmed by the sun in the day to night temperatures in a house. Probably, it will need to be fairly tolerant fish species in general, as careful individual health checks are not going to be practical. Also, because it will necessarily be open from above, they shouldn't be jumpers, which can remove a bunch of the killifish as options. Lastly, for long-term maintenance of the fish, I'm guessing some capacity to breed successfully would make things easier - though this might not be a hard rule. I'd love to hear ideas! What would you recommend?

Wow, miss a little, miss a lot here on the CARE forum. So much for Cory's desire for work life balance. 😉 There were so many great comments here, and I'm hoping to add to the conversation. That said, I just finished writing and posting an ecology exam for my students, so I'm a bit fried. If you could all excuse the subsequent minor (and major?) typos that follow, I sure would appreciate it. Your example of Saturn's rings is exactly what I love about science. When presented with new information, science incorporates it and adapts. This gets portrayed in the same light as a "flip-flopping" politician with things like "those darn scientists don't seem to stick to an answer". But that's the point. Discovery doesn't stop. Imagine if we demanded no more information be incorporated into our understanding. Physicians would still be treating the "humours" of the body. We'd never have gone into space. The industrial revolution? Forget it. That scientists learn from new information moves us all forward. I assure you, this is a feature not a bug. Things scientists generally agree on: a dropped object will be accelerated toward the Earth, the Earth is round and goes round the Sun, our bodies use DNA to encode information that is translated to build our bodies, elephants are mammals... The list goes on. Generally speaking, if scientists agree on something, it is the best current understanding we have built based on the available information. Does this mean scientists as a group know everything? Absolutely not. That continued discover bit from earlier. And additionally, there are fields in which many of the scientists seem to have difficulty in separating what the science tells us is happening, and what they as citizens think we should do with this information. That lack of clear distinction doesn't help anyone. But be assured that there are powerful incentives for scientists not to agree. Indeed scientists are about the most argumentative group around. If you want to get fame and fortune (or really a scientific publication and a look in at a grant), then the best way to do that is to falsify an established dogma. Scientists want to prove other scientists wrong. They don't want to agree. They are forced to by data. Those are great points about the complexity involved in even a relatively simple setup like a home aquarium! And I think pH is a wonderful example of it. For me complexity doesn't mean that I won't continue trying to figure out what is happening. I can see that is true for you as well. I'm glad to be in such good company on that! I'd say I sort of to knowing him. It's not like our families go on picnics together. But I do know who he is and correspond. I'm never comfortable divulging personal information about someone that they have not made publicly and easily available themselves. That said, I do take your point about sources. I've encouraged him to include his references, as I think that would help. I'm not surprised there would be negative opinions. When "common knowledge" is challenged there is a tendency for upset. Of course, if there were references people could address the studies directly. Plus, he's not always tactful. I've encouraged him to take a more generous view in some of his statements, and he has softened the language in those cases a bit. I absolutely get why people want to get rid of nitrates. It's the human desire to strive to perfect things. To advance. To make progress. And a smidge of laziness thrown in, if we are talking about me at least. I think I see where you are coming from here (correct me if I am wrong). It's like the simplified expectations in the run up to, and for a time after, the human genome project. Back when geneticists were hoping to find a gene for everything. Tall? This is the gene that made you that way. Brown eyes? Here is your gene? Like keeping fish? We've found the gene for that too! Of course, in reality it is far, far more complex. That said, you need to reduce the influencing factors to get at what components do. It's not the most efficient way forward, but when you are pushing into the unknown, sometimes you have to feel your way in the dark. You begin by isolating, and then you should come back around to add factors back in to get a more holistic view. Learn if the components are additive, or exponential, etc. But, I still remember back when I was a student learning how to do mathematical modeling, my advisor told me that you always assume it is a linear relationship first. Why? Because it's easiest, and you can always add complexity. @Biotope Biologist You are going to get my train of thought to jump the tracks onto the garden path (if I may mix my metaphors). This thread has been so nicely on topic, I hope I don't seem inconsiderate if I decline here. I would be happy to talk about ecological research, and how complex systems are studied, etc. But I don't want to distract from this wonderful thread. If I may, I think your experiment was/is great. You are trying to isolate the potential contribution of denitrifying bacteria. If you included all of those other things, you'd need to parse out their contribution to the process, which would be far more involved. I think it's great that you decided to do this experiment, share your thoughts and findings. I've been enjoying the conversation is started immensely. So thank you! Moreover, I know I am new around here, but I'm so impressed with the thoughtful and constructive contributions from so many people, particularly to a topic that many would find to be arcane. I'm enjoying my time here. Thank you all!

Dave has put together a good site there, and it's one of the best sources for well supported information in a hobby that is so often rife with half-truths, common knowledge, and personal anecdote. It does come with the one caveat that he is focused on highly stocked tanks - when you put in loads of plants, it changes some the outcomes and there is also less available data out there to reference.

Typically if a leaf is actually damaged, e.g. holes in leaves, dead tips, etc., that leaf will not recover, i.e. it may live, but won't regenerate over the holes or regrow a tip. However, if the leaves are weakened, such as some discoloration, they can recover to a degree. Generally, plants will need to grow new leaves. That's normal, and healthy new growth is a good sign that the plant as a whole is recovering nicely.

I realize that you already have a system installed, it's up and running, and you are likely happy with it. However, for anyone reading this who might be interested in alternative options, I offer this. In an approximately 150sqft, uninsulated portion of my basement, where one wall is above grade, I use a 5,000BTU portable electric heater and a fan to circulate the warm air. I recognize there is quite a bit more operation cost here than for a gas heater, but I have it in a GFI outlet and suspect this, overall, has fewer hazards associated with it than a burner of any sort. This is simply a suggestion of a potential alternate option for a similar situation, and in no way a condemnation of the techniques used by those more confident in their installation abilities than I.

It is indeed.

This is a great and interesting topic! I am an ecologist, and have colleagues who study nitrogen fluxes in aquatic systems. It's very cool stuff whether you are talking about the reasons for the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico or the processes in a home aquarium. In terms of the anoxic, denitrification process, my suspicion is at the scale of the home aquarium it would simply be easier to do water changes or grow plants to reduce nitrates. Indeed, I'm not certain it is possible to have denitrifying bacteria perform the function to any degree that would be beneficial (depending on stocking rates, of course). I'm trying to think of the best way to explain this, so please excuse me if I am fumbling a bit here. For the most part, we try to keep O2 fairly high in aquarium water. This is true not just in the display, but as we run it through filters. Unless that oxygen is utilized by something, it doesn't tend to decrease dramatically (stays in equilibrium with normal solubility with the air). Yes, loads of aerobic processes are going on in our tanks. But to favor denitrification, it takes pretty low oxygen. Denitrification is the least energetically efficient process in the aquarium "nitrogen cycle". That means that the flow of oxygenated water to any given surface must be fairly low, or the O2 is too high and the process is no longer favored. That can be achieved; however, think about if you had to achieve this with your typical biofiltration. Think of the area you would need for beneficial bacterial growth if the flow had to remain low to every surface to achieve conversion of ammonium to nitrate. So, while I think denitrification occurs in all aquaria, the area necessary to deplete the influx of nitrates would be massive, given the low flow rates that would be required to first deplete the oxygen. After running through an effective denitrification reactor, the water would then need to be rapidly re-oxygenated or it would be lethal to the animals in the aquarium. I am not saying that this is entirely impossible. And as a scientist, I am always eager to be disproved by good data. That said, I remain highly skeptical of the efficacy of such systems (even after watching videos made by certain doctors). Additionally, I am not certain that an effective denitrification reactor would be a better option than simply changing your water regularly, or growing plants (even if only in a refugium). Yes, plants will largely have an affinity for ammonium over nitrates, but they will scavenge nitrates quite effectively (which plants are best for this purpose in a freshwater system, remains an open question for me).

I was directed here by someone I respect on another forum. Signed up right away, then lurked. I like Cory's idea for a forum that focuses on the hobby and is less about the chit chat. So, I'm in. By training I'm a biologist. By profession... Man about town? In terms of what I have going for tanks; well I have more plans than tanks at the moment. I've got a 42 gal that I am just about to rework. I have a rack of 9 twenty H tanks that is in process. And I have a 280 gal on order. I've kept tanks on and off for years. Worked in a LFS in high school. But it before this round it had been a fair few years since I had my last active tank. I love a sump filter when I can use them, but I prefer UGF or box filters for smaller tanks. I'm deeply opposed to ever owning a canister. I tend to have what I call survivalist fish keeping tendencies - i.e. I like to keep tanks where I can keep and breed colonies of a species. Not really a community tank sort of person, and I have no interest in hybrids (I can always get your hybrids from my species, but you can never get my species back from your hybrids). Other than that, I'm interested in Rift Lakes cichlids, and little fish that have been isolated in desert springs. Well, and I have have N-class Endlers as well as snails too.

If you are interested in the Okefenokee pygmy sunfish (Elassoma okefenokee) or even better, the Gulf Coast pygmy sunfish (Elassoma gilberti), but worried about their feeding requirements, I have a suggestion if I may. Look into the iridescent toothcarp (Aphanius mento). The color patterns can be strikingly similar depending on the population source (most are Turkish sources of various locals). They are also very hardy in terms of water parameters. And best of all, they accept a much wider range of food types. Much like the pygmy sunfish species, they are unlikely to be at your LFS, so you might have to contact a local killifish enthusiast group to find them. The one down side of this as a substitute for the sunfish species is the males do not do the same specific display. A display that is really quite interesting. *I recognize I have not yet introduced myself on the welcome page. I apologize for the break in etiquette. I will endeavor to do so soon. In the meantime please accept this as my mea culpa.