johnjohnjohn87
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Posts posted by johnjohnjohn87
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On 6/24/2021 at 10:19 PM, tnnlynch said:
The 24" fluval light only has an 18" light surface. I centered it my new 29 galleon tank (30" wide). My aquascape has Pogostemon planted in the corner of the tank with the intention of it growing in to hide the filter behind it. My Pogostemon is actually growing on an angle to recenter itself under the brighter light. It is also growing rather long well spaced out leaves which would indicate to me my lighting is too low at least for it. I run 50% for ten hours and so far have had little to no algae so am hesitant to adjust.
Think I should up the top rate at least for some portion of the day or rearrange plants?
I think if you're algae free you can probably bump the light intensity a bit and see how the tank responds over a week. I have similar annoyances with the Fluval 3.0 and it's relatively narrow throw of light. At this point I'm replacing mine, but what helped me was to suspend it over the tank. Any way to raise it up will broaden the area lit in the tank. If you're only at 50%, you have room to increase the lighting, too (to compensate for the additional distance).
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On 7/11/2021 at 11:13 AM, Mmiller2001 said:
The lowest I would go is CO2Art and if you want to spend a bit more, grab a GLA regulator.
The CO2art comes in a nice kit, 1 with inline diffuser or in tank diffuser.
GLA is a small step up and now look to have complete kits.
https://greenleafaquariums.com/products/gla-pro-ds-1-aquarium-co2-system-dual-stage-modular-1.html
I have 2 CO2art's and they are fine and I'm 100% confident in them. My only complaint is that one of them adjusts a little too well and a millimeter movement makes a decent change.
Once you set the fine adjustment valve, CO2 injection rate will remain the same until changed.
I recommend this resource to answer all your questions.
Excellent response. I’ve been very happy with my co2art gear and 2hraquarist literally has all of the answers hahaha.
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15 hours ago, OceanTruth said:
Mine sends out lily pads pretty often. I do have to trim a few every so often when the leaf seems a bit unhealthy. If yours is looking healthy I wouldn't worry too much about it. Maybe it just needs some more time.
I use root tabs for the lily as well. I feel like it helps.
Do you trim at the base of the stem, or at the leaf? Mine have taken off and the leaves are about the height I want them.
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9 hours ago, Karen B. said:
I hear you about the regulator being about impossible to really fine tune. I am home right now so I don’t mind turning it on in the morning and spending like 5 minutes trying to get the right flow 🤪
I am not sure how long I will use co2 - not sure I am hardcore enough for that. It’s mainly to speed up the growth of my plants to be the best environment for my fish that requires heavily planted tanks. And control algea. Kinda losing that fight. Will have to read more about that.
I am with you however - if I ever decide to continue on the long turn, it will be a system with a solenoid for sure!!!
You know, the funny thing about this is that I’ll compulsively check mine for a few days dialing things in (thanks, covid). But once it is set (on a Kasa timer), I won’t check it for weeks unless I’m troubleshooting something. One tip is to wait 5 minutes between adjustments to make sure everything doesn’t move because the adjustments are so tiny.
You can absolutely get this working!!! Don’t give up!
The other thing is that CO2 expands the range of light intensity useful to the plants (Denis Wong), so if you’re not blasting everything with light and your fish aren’t gasping... You are doing just fine! Lower light plus CO2 is an awesome place to be. I didn’t start finding algae problems for myself until I cranked the lights up. I’m Ok with working through these issues because I want a specific result now.
edit: the sources I trust for high-tech information are
2hraquarist (Dennis Wong)
barrreport (Tom Barr)
Green Aqua on YouTube
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1 minute ago, Karen B. said:
Yeah, this whole CO2 thing was maybe too much for me. But I was trying to get my plants to grow nice and healthy.
I can’t quite figure out if this is green or yellow!
I’ve never used a drop checker like that (I’m used to the glass ones). But don’t give up!!!
Green Aqua on YouTube has some really excellent videos about CO2 and break it down well. It’s really complicated to learn about, but actually doing it is pretty simple.
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2 minutes ago, Karen B. said:
So I need to check my ph if I understand you correctly. Is that what the checker do?
My checker was blue. Now it changed color but I can’t quite figure out if it’s light green or yellow. Ugh.You’re shooting for sustained lime green on the drop checker. Blue is not enough CO2 and yellow is too much. Relies on gas exchange and a known solution (the drop checker solution). The drop checker functions on pH fluctuation too, but the CO2 rabbit hole is sort of deep if you want to dive in.
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I’m sure there are others more knowledgeable that will chime in, but a simple way to hit around 20-30ppm CO2 is a 1 pH drop while gassing. There are some excellent write ups over at barrreport that get really deep into the topic and are worth reading.
Just keep in mind that drop checkers indicate where the tank was around 2 hours ago, so go slow on adjustments. Also, pH drop from CO2 injection is non-linear.
Honestly, if you find it’s driving you crazy (like me), pick up a pH pen on Amazon. Instant, accurate results. I really like the Apera pH tester pen I have.
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I don’t think they make risers for the 3.0, but I just raised mine about 5-6 inches this weekend! Makes a pretty substantial difference and I’ll be able to elevate the rear of the tank and have light there.
I ended up going to the hardware store and ceiling mounting it. Took a bit longer then expected but I am really happy with the results.
Hopefully PAR at the bottom of the tank won’t take too much of a hit, but time will tell. Good luck!
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On 1/7/2021 at 10:40 PM, L.W. Wetarm said:
I have a SunSun 704b on my 60 gallon tank. For the money, I don’t think they can be beat. It has four big baskets to hold a bunch of mechanical and biological filter media. It’s extremely powerful and filters a lot of water. Most of the bad reviews are completely unfounded. Usual bad reviews are; 1,noisy...yes, the impeller makes noise when it gets dirty or wears out. It’s a big pump, it’s going to make some sound. ...2, leaks...the only time mine leaked was when I got the lid on cockamamie, which is easy to do if not careful. The best part is that it is a really big canister that pumps a lot of water that can be configured anyway you want for under $100.
My other canister is a Oase 350 Biomaster. I’ve just had this one for a week or two now but I’m in love. To say it quite is an understatement. A desktop computer fan is louder. It has a removable pre-filter that can be removed and cleaned without breaking open the whole canister. And my favorite feature is the basket handle for carrying it. Love it but $239 😲.
I tried real hard to like sponge filters but I just couldn’t fit them into the look.
The removable pre-filter has had me itching for an Oase cannister for months now... Do they use goofy proprietary hoses like Fluval? Very interested in how the Oase treats you over the long term.
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Hi everyone!
I've been battling BBA for the last month or so and got to thinking about temperature fluctuation. I'll share my setup below, but my question is more general (I know what kicked off my BBA hahaha). Will a few degrees of temperature fluctuation in a high-tech tank cause CO2 levels to fluctuate enough to cause algae?
I've got a 90g tank with an Eheim 200W thermostat connected to an external controller. The target temperature is 73-75 fahrenheit and the controller will only power the thermostat to get the tank back up to 75 if it falls below 73. I think it takes about 2 hours to go from 73 to 75, but I haven't timed it (I'm sure it's over an hour).
Me and the fish have been happy with the gentile rise and fall of the temps and reduced wear and tear on the thermostat, but I'm not sure if I'm making things harder on myself with the fluctuations.
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USB air pump (1/3 watt) + good sized UPS should get you quite a bit of runtime for not that much money. You could then pull the bio media from the canister and stick it in the tank with the bubbles underneath. I think that should get you quite a bit of time if there is a longer outage and keep the bio media alive.
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3 hours ago, tuculover said:
They're basically the same. The USB air pump is a small hobby motor that spins a 3-sided diaphragm pump. Different mainly in that the USB pump doesn't change the direction of motion, it's rotary motor to rotary diaphragm; while the normal pumps change from rotary motor to vertical diaphragm to power their pumps. Some pumps may also use a magnet to pull the diaphragm in one of the directions and a spring to push in the other. But the one-way valves and diaphragms are all the same.
Linear air pumps are a whole different beast, that's why they're so quiet. Think two syringes connected by one-way valves, going in opposite directions; while one is emptying, the other is filling. Constant air pressure and very, very quiet.
Thank you very much for an awesome response! That covers what I was wondering!
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I was just wondering if the technology on USB air pumps (like the Aquarium Co-op ones) was the same as a traditional pump. The reason I’m asking is because I took apart an old pump of mine (from PetCo) to fix and give to my daughter and was kind of shocked at how primitive it was (this one literally rattled itself apart).
I could swear I saw a post somewhere about USB pumps using a different kind of motor or something, but that was weeks ago and I can’t find the post. I’m also generally curious about component longevity or if there is a good article I could read about them.
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2 hours ago, Streetwise said:
Not off topic at all. This thread is for many types of lighting schedules, and I discuss my siesta programs early in the thread. I used paper graphs to map everthing out, and I considered any right-triangle section as being half of the equivalent rectangle period. With only ten points, I had just enough to schedule: ramp up 1, ramp down 1, seista 1, ramp up 2, ramp down 2, siesta 2, ramp up 3, ramp down 3, minimal blue wind-down bit, night. Once I got my schedule to fill my day, I slowly ramped up peak power based on my algae levels.
So I basically sliced up a six-hour schedule to allow twelve hours of light, with two one-hour siestas, and a one-hour 1-2% blue period.
Cheers
I went back and reread your opening posts again (our newborn is happily destroying our sleep schedule hahaha). Really clever way to slice up the photo periods and I will definitely give this a shot. Thanks for expanding on a fantastic post.
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This might be a bit off topic, but does anyone know how one might approach going from a simple 8 hour photo period to a multi-peaking siesta program? Being home now, it would be really cool to have the tank light up in the AM as well as afternoon, but I’m worried about lots of algae. My tank is a moderately planted 90g and I’m dosing Easy Green and have Seachem Flourish Tabs too.
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4 hours ago, Dean’s Fishroom said:
I have no idea how long the bacteria in filter media will survive with out circulation. I've certainly gone 2-3 hours keeping the filter media in a bucket filled with tank water and it hasn't created any problems. But if I let it sit overnight which sometimes happens there is definitely a foul odor the next day, which would lead me to believe that the beneficial bacteria has crashed or is in the process of crashing. Still I just rinse it very well and re-set it up and everything catches back up in a few days. To be sure you can always re-seed it by squeezing out a sponge filter from another tank into the tank.
Dean!!! Thank you! A couple hours is good enough to keep in mind when doing maintenance (and more then I assumed).
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1 hour ago, Daniel said:
@Cory can so read your mind!
LMAO this is excellent
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On 8/13/2020 at 8:55 AM, Mark Mason said:
Thanks Cory for the Sponge Filter update video I redid all my tanks and its a clear improvement
If you haven't seen it you should : )
P.s would love to see sum submersible filter comparisons
Mark
I swear, it's like Cory can read my mind.
Got some Aquarium Co-op sponge filters and Never Clog Air Stones the other day and had been wondering how to optimize them ever since (I'm new to the hobby). Sure enough, he releases 20 glorious minutes of sponge filter information, techniques, and demos examples. Two weeks ago I had questions about tetra schools because my LFS scared me about growing them and--bam--he releases his rummy nose video.
If you see this, Cory, I have no idea how you're doing it...or what pact you had to make to be so on-point with your content.
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White vinegar has worked pretty well for me. What I wish I had thought of when I first got used tanks was a flat razor blade. That would have saved me loads of time and works on glass.
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Hi everyone!
I got started in the hobby in January. Now, I have to admit, I didn't care one bit about fish until my grandpa gave me a 10 gallon tank he had sitting in his yard. He thought it would be fun for me and my daughter to keep some fish...and was he right! Of course, I went to Petco, was told all the wrong stuff, and two of my fish died the next day. But then I started looking for my own information and found Aquarium Co-op on Youtube...Then my platys had babies, I got really interested in keeping fish, discovered live plants, and inherited a 90 gallon tank from my in-laws.
What can I say? I'm really happy to be here. I found this forum pretty recently and thought I'd start participating.
Here is a picture of my 90g. It is, of course, a work in progress. Curious if anyone has any recommendations. My current plans are to expand my cardinal tetra school from 13 to about 30 or so and let the plants fill in. There is a patch of ludwigia repens in the middle that should grow up from behind the rocks. It's low tech and I'm dosing 1 pump of Easy Green per day and have some Seachem Flourish tabs in the substrate. Lighting is 1 Fluval Plant 3.0.
90g stocking is currently: 15 rosy tetras, 11 platys (mickey mouse), 3 melini corys (if I can find more around me I'll add some), 13 cardinal tetras
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Hello everyone,
I've gotten some feedback for this topic over on Reddit, but I was wondering what you guys though about a few beneficial bacteria questions I had:
- How long can beneficial bacteria can survive without oxygenation (like when you turn off a canister filter)?
- How long can filter media be out of the water before BB starts to die off?
- Are there good rules of thumb to consider when doing maintenance? (like how long can the canister be off or sponge be out of the water?)
It's my first post here, so sorry if I'm not following the rules.
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Fluval 3.0 lighting and my plants
in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers
Posted
I replaced it with a pair of Finnex Planted+ 24/7 ACL lights. I'm only running the pair at about 60% for now, as that is already a decent bump in PAR (I think), but plan to increase a bit over the next few weeks. The reason I raised the 3.0 was because I wanted to light the rear of the tank after adding a decent amount of substrate to the rear as well. The narrow beam of light wasn't really working for me so I just raised in a few inches by suspending it from the ceiling. That actually worked well for me for several months before I decided to try replacing the 3.0.
Yea, traveling has made it a bit more difficult to maintain everything this time of year hahaha. Good luck with the spot algae! I'm very slowly combating some BBA, but I think the tides have finally turned for me!