Solidus1833

I've got pretty hard water and I dose Co2. PH is 7.6 I've never been able to get hornwort to grow it only dies. Ammania Gracilis (i think its called) always dies, and scarlet temple always dies. The only plants I've had much success with are crypts, anubias, val, and that (octopus) plant. My substrate is just sand and Seachem Flourite mix. You can control your ph. with Co2 injection and keep the ph. lower if that's what's causing the die-off. A table like I've included below can give you what PH you need for around 30ppm co2. You need to know your KH and use the table to see what PH you need to drop to in order for 30ppm co2. Not sure if any of this helps, but it has worked for me. I start with ph7.6 and drop it to around 6.8 at the highest point for my lights. then by the time my lights turn off for the day my ph is around 7.0-7.2. By the time the co2 kicks back on in the early morning the ph doesnt rise past 7.2 and the cycle begins again. Not sure if any of this helps, but it can be another avenue. Do you need to dose macro-nutrients? Wouldn't hard water kind of have that already?

If you want a decent spray bar, I used to buy mine from a guy on ebay, however hes got an amazon store now. Just do some searches for fluval fx4 spray bar and it should populate. OR, you can just make one yourself. I love spray bars, got em in all my aquariums.

Thank you for the reply Cory. I wonder if it has something to do with the capacitor/silicon shortages for mainboards. There is a hefty amount of electronics in the E-series heaters.

ahh that makes sense.

I'm a huge fan of the E-series Heaters. However, I've noticed the co-op hasn't listed them in a while nor can I find them online anywhere else. Is there a story to this?

I was wondering, would it be possible to get a Murphy cam (lady bird) imbedded to the forum? It would be kind of neat to be able to watch while surfing the forum.

I've been running an fx4 with a spray bar for years now. Easy to service, and the auto shutoff every 12hrs that removes air in the system is really neat. If you would like some more info on the FX line check out PondGuru on youtube.

If its a brand new tank, I absolutely love Seachem Stability. It has always worked for me (avg time is about 3-5days to cycle). Whenever I service my Fx4 cannister I dose Seachem Stability. If you have an established tank and expanding, Take some media from the cycled aquarium and include it within the new filter media (and Seachem Stability). This can even speed up the cycle considerably. When I set up my latest 72g, I used stability and fully cycled in 4 days, re-dosed stability, then rehomed one of my plecos to be the ceremonial 1st fish of the aquarium. The stuff just works.

I agree with everything you mentioned, however I've never had my api test show NH3/4 from the tap until these last two weeks. The city did put out a notice that they were dosing Ammonia in March due to the watersystems here freezing up. (part of maintenance). However I cant get a good answer from them when I call the city municipal waterworks. I always dose Prime directly into the tank as I know they dose chloramine. Just weird now that I'm getting receiving 1ppm nh3/4 from my api test kit for my tap, never happened before. I've had my tap tested at my lfs last month before the freeze and there was zero nh3/4 on their kits as-well. So I suppose I can still just use Prime as it nullifies ammonia as well for 48hrs while my tank eats it up?

So since the TexasSnowmageddon, my city is dosing ammonia it seems. I'm regularly getting 1ppm from the tap. I've set up a 32gal can with aerators and some Fluval Ammonia Remover to see if that could possibly drop the ppm prior to water changes. Has any one else tried this method? Will the ammonia burn off just from aeration? I could always not deal with this and use Prime during the waterchange to nullify the ammonia as my 72g planted tank can eat off 1ppm NH3/4 in about 24hrs. Anyone got any ideas to prep water and remove ammonia?

I dosed with Stability when I cleaned the Fx4 on Wednesday, but I may put some more in this evening. I believe Stability takes about 3 days to really set in. I've cycled a tank with Stability in 48 hours before aided with a nasty sponge filter. I think you are right about a partial die off from the 7 days of zero filtration.

So I figure Id update for today. I did a 50% water change around 4 hours ago. My nitrates showed minimal drops so somewhere between 160ppm and 80ppm. I say this is an improvement because over last week and yesterday my nitrates would immediately hit 160ppm on the api test kit. As of this evening the color isnt the darkest red but somewhere between 80ppm and 160ppm. I also decided to test our tap water again and it looks like the city is pumping ammonia into the water. Strait from the tap is .50ppm, and the water I just tested from the 72g is about 4hrs old and somewhere in-between .25ppm and 0ppm. I suppose that means my cycle is beginning to recover? I may do another 50% or maybe a 30% tomorrow depending on how much ammonia I test from the tap.

Good point. I've not cleaned my fx4 since I serviced it on Wednesday last week. It was honestly the worst I've ever seen for me at least. I thought of replacing some of the fine sponge but didn't want to take too much bacteria out of the system yet.

I think you may be onto something here. My ammonia is at .25ppm which its normally 0 as the plants take care of it mostly. I've gravel vacuumed so much over last week I hardly pick up any crud. I suppose I may just need to keep daily water changes, but not sure if 50% a day is harming the cycle from rebounding or not. I plan to do another 25% this evening.

Yeah I was questioning that advice my LFS gave me aswell as I dont run any charcoal. Biohome is such a good media I've not run charcoal in over 10 years. This Biochem Zorb is a resin/charcoal mix so atleast its not 'just' charcoal. But I'm honestly questioning its use. Sorry I should have elaborated a little more. I've had full power since the 22nd. I do appreciate your advice though.

Thank you for the reply. I did test my water source as that was my first thought too. My source is normal, Nitrate/Nitrite and ammonia all 0ppm. The PH is still normal too. I always like to keep nitrates around 40-80ppm as the plants feed. I do use Easy Green from time to time but not really every week. I've not added any Easy Green in 3 weeks now. From what I'm reading on my api test kit my nitrates are somewhere between 80 and 160ppm. I'm just worried I have some crazy imbalance going on. Trying to diagnose it has resulted in zero change.

So, on a positive note, I did not lose a single fish from either my 20g or 72g. However right now I'm dealing with some massive nitrate levels. Let me give some details. My house went nearly 1 week without consistent power. Between 7 days I only received around half an hour of electricity on two different occasions. So I essentially put my backup heater in my big tank wrapped both tanks with insulating blankets, gave a salute and hoped for the best. So needless to say it worked, the temps didn't drop below 68F which is 10F below where it is kept. The house was at 48F at the lowest point. The 72g has a Fluval fx4 with Biohome media and two types of sponge, coarse/fine. I've never had an imbalance like this before. After spending all of last week cleaning the Fx4 and doing 25% water changes a day and 50% on Friday yet I saw zero change in nitrate levels. So I went to my lfs for some advice and they told me to get some Biochem-Zorb and place it in my Fx4. So I placed the BC-Zorb in my bottom tray after all the biohome yesterday afternoon. I expect to run it for atleast a week before I either add another pouch or try something else besides weekly 25% water changes. So essentially Im asking for some advice here to see if anyone else has had this problem. I suppose what I'm going through is 'old tank syndrome'. Was one pouch of BC-Zorb enough? I'm beginning to think I may have needed to buy two pouches. The tank is planted so I never get any ammonia readings. Nitrites are 0, and all the other parameters are normal just the Nitrates are through the roof. One other thing to mention is when I opened up my Fx4 on Wednesday to service it. My fine sponge is normally blue yet now its red. I think this means my Biohome is deteriorating? Could this be a cause of my nitrate spikes? This tank was in a such good cycle I could go 3 weeks with no water change before I would see nitrates go above 40ppm. Bonus pic of Ricky (royal) and Leo (Para) pleco's monchin, and a picture of the full tank taken this morning.

Here is some macros I took of one of my Dojo Loaches and Orange Laser Cory. I still have a hard time getting most my fish to stay put long enough for macro shots. But the Dojos seem to like it when I approach the glass this close.

I've serviced my Fluval Fx4 canister probably close to 100 times. Just this last week when doing my bi-monthly service on it, I forgot to close the tubes, I promptly dumped fish water all over myself. 😅

The best thing I ever did to combat BBA was get a Siamese algae eater. I've got an XL one in my 72g that constantly cleans and cleans I love the way they look and maintenance the tank. I also have a barely 1/2inch Siamese algae eater in my 20g that was getting overgrown. That little sucker has plenty of food.

very interesting! I have three glow-light tetra's in my 72g, I rescued them from my son's 20g. More like, they began eating the cardinal tetras they got so big. I love the way they look at night when my lights start to dim with a little bit of blue/red lighting. How long does it take for the fry to start displaying their florescent colors?

My L191 royal pleco Ricky and his friend the L075 Sarbaji 'Para' pleco Leo are two of my favorite fish. However, probably the most fun fish to watch in this tank is my Rainbow Shark. He kind of acts like the 'Tank Boss' for the rainbowfish keeping them from going to low into the bottom feeder's domain while feeding.

I love vibra bites. All of my fish eat it without question. I tend to use them when I'm not feeding frozen blood worms.

I feel ya, I really want to do a sump to get this heater out of view, but honestly this Fluval Fx4 has served me well for a very long time and its so quiet. I agree, the Co-Op plants are extremely well cared for. Lately my plant purchases have been coming in the thermal bags to stave away the heat down here in Texas. They have all arrived with minimal damage so far. However, the red dwarf bulbs are taking FOREVER to show noticeable signs of growth.