HH Morant

I am gradually replacing the filter media in my Eheim canister filters. In stages, I am taking out the media that came with the filters and replacing it with 30 ppi poret foam. I have 2 Eheim 2217 canisters on a 120 gallon tank. I can see the water getting clearer after replacing about half the old media with the foam. I don't have any mechanical or chemical filtration in the canisters. 30 ppi foam is not considered mechanical filtration because the pores are too big. I also have one sponge filter which I don't clean very often. Everybody has a favorite biological filter media. I was persuaded by aquariumscience.org, which has several articles on filtration. The author did some tests of several biological filter medias. Poret foam and pot scrubbers performed much better than any other media, and the non-foam commercial filter medias generally performed more poorly than aquarium gravel as a filter media. Six weeks after putting the first poret foam into my filters (and removing the white mechanical filter pads), my water is cleaner and clearer. I highly recommend 30 ppi poret foam.

Fish - angels Plant - Pogostemon stellatus octopus

Quoting an Australian friend: You call that a knife?

Welcome and g'day mate!

Good luck! Looks like you have done what you can. It is up to them now.

Yes, it is nice to be able to voice an honest opinion without being attacked.

Alien and Aliens were both good movies. If a new Dune is coming, it will have to be better than the old one. Although you gotta like Sting in the original.

I used Fritzyme 7. Similar to your experience with the Tetra stuff, I am not sure it did anything. Based on what I have read since then, I suspect it did not. I did have a bacteria bloom soon after, but bacteria in the water column is a different kind of bacteria then the bacteria that is supposed to be in Fritzyme and the other bacteria-in-a-bottle products. I was dealing with an ammonia spike and was desperate.

Guppysnail has the right idea. Your fish might be stressed a little, but you can organize it so that it is only a little more stressful than a water change and a gravel-vac.

80 degrees?

Just noticed I have some. Bristlenose.

HIDE AND SEEK

Wow, quikv6, sounds like you have some unusual tap water. Fortunately for those of us with more common tap water, fish are tolerant of ph levels well outside their native range and we don't have to worry too much. I think you have the right idea when you suggest picking fish that can live with your water parameters rather than trying to change water parameters to suit your fish.

If the fish are eating, it is more effective to medicate their food than to dose the water column.

That must be a powerful itch you are scratching! Beautiful set-up.

I don't think 80 ppm nitrates is going to poison any fish. It is something else.

Somehow I have managed to successfully keep fish without worrying about GH or KH and with only a passing knowledge of what the PH of my water is. I am confused as to what this thread is about. So you might say "HH Morant, why are you posting anything here?" Good question. I would refer you to a couple of articles on aquariumscience.org called "Carbonate Hardness" and "KH and Cycling." The writer is a chemist and I have found his writings on other subjects very valuable. I hope you find these two articles informative, and I wish you good luck.

Daniel, is that a cat on your kitchen counter?

You could get different angel varieties so the kids can easily tell them apart and name them.

Prime detoxifies nitrite in a way that is chemically unexpected.

Quarantining the two groups together is a risk. If there is sickness in one group, the other group would be exposed. As to species compatibility, I do not know.

The eyes have it!

Wow, looks like a disco in the seventies. Some eggs are going to happen!

Finer bubbles move more water, so the sponge filter is more efficient at both filtering and aerating if it has an air stone. Guppysnail is right about using the sponge filter without an air stone and also about the sound.