nabokovfan87

Definitely. It's so difficult to really control KH quickly. Takes time. Given the size of the pond, you might need a lot more or add a power head to give it the effect of dissolving quicker? What was the KH and PH this morning?

The big thing is simply the thread size. So say the regulator you have is 1/4" hole with fine thread at a certain pitch. You can get adapters, but honestly you can get a regulator for the same price. They can be anywhere from $20 up to $600 depending what you want as a feature set. You might even be able to find a used hobbyist one that fits what you need. This is the soda stream one. Researching into paintball equipment might be another naource as well. You just need to find the actual thread information on the regulator that you have or maybe someone who has one knows and has posted the details of the regulator or the cartridge. https://www.co2art.us/products/new-pro-series-co2-adapter-for-paintball-sodastream?variant=31176553791570&gclid=Cj0KCQjwyYKUBhDJARIsAMj9lkG4lJNBEVvlAGguZnoodv4coDAJInwRamjAoCjfxyFyqNc9QckcxaQaAr0_EALw_wcB

Mine have been in the mid 60's. During the winter here it's about... just above freezing and pretty often the tank air temp is high 50's-low 60's, lower at night. what is in the tank now? I had pandas, borneo loaches, a few other cooler water species.

Looks close. Missing a lot of length on the leaves. Going through the ppt right now. Maybe this one? (a gigantic variant of it at least) - Sagittaria I don't see that stacking / layered chute on these though. Definitely a difficult one to ID until it grows a bit. I assume it was taken submersed growth? The only thing that looks close besides the two above is bulrush and/or some of the cattails

Just an FYI for anyone who may be trying to "reduce algae" by running low blue numbers. You don't want to run the blue at 0. It's an essential color range for the plants to grow in a certain fashion. Some plants might need that spectrum specifically to grow or to have all of the wavelengths needed to grow. The warm white is one of your three primary colors. warm = more reddish and yellow than a cooler white, which means it will support a bit less algae than the warmer color spectrum. Both will grow algae if things aren't in balance, but I say that to simply illustrate that the two primary values for me are pure white, warm white, cool white (in that order). I usually keep the warm at the same % or 5-10% lower than my pure white setting. I see a ton of very low % schedules in this thread and a ton of beautiful tanks. Bentley has one of his videos (I think his part 3 pro mode guide) where he specifically gives out tank sizes and specific % settings he recommends. Keep in mind, the goal is to start low and eventually increase it as the plants fill in. Your schedule right now, to me, looks like a "low light" setup. Height of the tank in question is probably right on the cusp of being a "low-med" schedule. (think of it like medium-low on the stove) -------------------------------- I posted this in my journal but I think it might help someone decide on a light to purchase when they are in-between sizes. The premise for me was originally trying to save a bit of cost, but also to buy the "right size" for the tank. I've come to realize that there's a few key issues (black hinges on lids) and a variety of things that made it seem like the 24" was the correct choice. Now that I am trying to get a somewhat demanding plant to carpet I am finding that my light simply doesn't reach the depth of the tank I need. Granted, the light isn't at 100% intensity, but I am also trying to get the plants to grow and very concerned with issues of dead spots in spots of the tank. The solution for me was to try to focus on the "LED Strip" length and not the actual length of the light fixture itself. So when we say it's a 24" light, the actual LEDs are 20" in their strip. On my 36" light, it's just at 30" length. I can measure the 48" as well, but generally speaking there's about 2-2.5" of "fixture" on either side. As long as you don't mind an overhang, this *might be* the critical dimension for sizing a light to a tank. (example being, a 30" tank might really need a 28" strip, who really knows) My plan is to run the exact same profile on the new fixture and report back in a few weeks about any changes in the tank. For reference, this is a 29G tank. Disclaimer: I have been dealing with a severe algae issue in both of my tanks. I have focused on cleaning this one up and it's come a long way. I have changed things up in a specific order and the before/after photos and full details are in my journal (Amano shrimp, lights, fertilizer). For the most part, I'm probably going to see an algae spike as a result of this change. The question really is about whether or not the plants continue to out compete the algae in question. Here is the comparison of the new vs. old light on the tank itself. 24" 36" You can see a pretty drastic difference in the PAR reaching the substrate if you focus on the lefthand seiryu stone next to the ziss filter. This is the current profile I am running:

Looks fine to me. Your window is pretty short, but it might be fine given the load on the tank. I would keep an eye on the grasses on the far left. If they don't continue to grow then you would need to increase the intensity slightly, or potentially moving the gooseneck left slightly. Eventually, after the plants fill in, you'd increase it up 10-15% and probably settle around there.

hm... Definitely interesting. There is some 2-2.5" corys and then there are some that get up to 3-3.5". Either one I think is FINE in a 20G. But, for the sake of argument, let's keep to the "smaller ones" When you look at the body shape you can see something like these emerald corys or brochis (different species). They get bigger. A bit chunkier and bigger bodied when younger. There are some like these too that have a bit longer snout, those can be an indication of a species that gets pretty long. (Barbatus cory) These get up to 4" Others like the salt/pepper corys (they go by a ton of names) look a bit narrower and "medium" bodied. That's kind of what you're looking for when "generally looking" but definitely keep an eye on spec sheets and verify size. Emerald: 3.5" Pepper (Paleatus)": 2-2.5" Panda: 2-2.5" Albino (bronze) cory: 2.5" Bronze: 2.5" False Julii: 2.5" Julii: 2.5" Sterbai: 2.5" Orange Laser: 3" https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/top-10-cory-catfish

I'll tolerate it, but just don't want to have that dead snail smell overtake my room / tank. I have cupramine on hand, might have to use that for a soak and like you said, I'll end up looking at other guides and Irene's guide as well. I totally have seen hers before and just didn't follow it. I was really struggling to keep the plants alive and wanted them to convert in the tank a bit before I unpacked them. I am guessing it came in via the basket. First time I've done it that way. Usually I manually inspect it and stuff. Oh whale.

Totally only found out about this because it pinged my phone. LOL

The advice I will say is to test your parameters daily for the first 2 weeks until you find out if there are deficiencies. Some farms do 100% WC daily. The RATE of change might be so slow that the fish can handle it. The goal is to not shock the fish and to ensure that the water itself doesn't crash. At the rate of what you're talking about, you're basically changing water as your filter in lieu of running a traditional tank. So the filter is basically there for oxygenation for the most part. This is putting it "simply", but hopefully that clarifies a bit about what you're doing. Check out the Jack Wattley Discuss tour.

Just test ammonia in the morning. Should be fine. Keep it covered / darkened and then the fish should be ok.

Then I have to figure out how to get rid of assassin snails, right?

PH 6.8 KH 50-60 GH 300+ Temp 73 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 25 Testing this week is: PH: 7.0 KH: 60-70 GH: 300 Temp: 74-75 (it's officially summer now) Nitrite: 0 Nitrate: 20 (I literally just dosed) What a change a couple of days brings. About 5-6 days after the previous lighting changes, adjustment to fertilizing, and a few water changes, I *finally* started to see some new growth. The tank itself is "finally working" and despite how bad all of these plants are doing, I know part of it is melt and part of it is just fighting algae and trying to hold on. What I realized when keeping an eye on things, and thanks to finding someone posting a guide sheet for various types of algae, I've been running my nitrates too high and keeping them at too high a level. I definitely like the lighting I had running, but there was definitely some dead spots and issues getting that light to the substrate. The wood and Anubias is just in the way and I see this mostly in the melt/struggle of the Sterogyne Repens. My first pot looked to be starting new growth, but it's just not doing anything. the second purchase I made seemed to be doing better and they are starting to show some pretty bad coloration (melt) and I don't see any new growth yet. I am very encouraged by the DHG though. Even in the back left of the tank where I was very concerned, I do see new chutes and new growth. Alright, Story time, and let's dive right into the big changes. I have the upgraded lid (the amazon brand) and overall it's "not great" but it's much better than having the aqueon versatop black hinge in the way. I also got my CO2 regulator back up and running and found out why it wasn't working properly before. In a few days when I do have the timer and/or when I am satisfied with the lighting changes I will go ahead and drop in CO2. I really don't want to crash the tank, so I have 2 CO2 tanks now, one is empty, and I will not worry about having a week or two of time without CO2 on the tank. Problem solved! That being said, I don't know what the impact will be of the CO2 on the algae issues. It will be a fun little experiment (or time lapse) to see what happens. I need to remove the extra air I'm pumping into the tank and will do all of that once I setup the tank in the family area for my panda corys. Here's a few shots of the light for comparison sake and anyone who has a 29G and might want to see the difference between the two options. Hood Placement: 24" vs. 36" vs. 36" (rotated) Note: This is showing placement with all LEDs on the top of the tank and not obscured with the rim or overhanging the rim Here is a side by side to show you the difference in actual LED coverage: Lighting Comparison: 24" vs. 36" vs. 36" (rotated) Here's a few closeups of the growth or lack of: OH..... one more thing. I found this today. 😕 Edit: I double checked to make sure the camera wasn't doing any weirdness. Here's a straight on shot, same settings comparison. The biggest indicator for me is the "haze" about halfway down the water level in the middle. The other one that stands out to me is the lower left piece of Seiryu stone and how you can see the face vs. how it's shaded out.

Yep! I wouldn't mind getting some zebra loaches either! The issue I had last time was I had dragonstone in the tank and it was a massive piece, tall, and it had some deep holes for them to hide. No matter what I did they came back stronger than I could manage. It'll work out. Just wasn't what I expected to see in their. I legitimately did a double take and just stood there for a minute.

Well, I know it's entirely my fault and I know the co-op plants have a risk. Ya got me again Cory. 😂 I hope it doesn't get out of hand, but let's just say I really don't want to have these guys in the tank. It is what it is.

Literally this one thing is worth it for just about everyone with a 10G tank. SO glad it exists and now I know it exists. Thanks! For anyone who is curious here's the default settings that came on my 36" light.

I would lean towards false Julii corys or somethine that likes to be "slightly" warmer than a panda. Albino or bronze corys might be ones to look at too. The advantage you have is that this is a 20L tank and the corys will absolutely love that real estate. You can start with 3-4 and then you may end up having eggs to give you more (or not, which is fine too!) I would have some sort of piece of wood or "cover" for the corys to hide out in when they need to. If the betta decides to be feisty, I really doubt there will be any long term issues, then It would give the betta a place to lay on the top of the wood as well as the corys a place to hide below the wood. You mentioned substrate. As long as you don't have sharp substrate you should be fine. Sharp and hard substrate might lead to issues, but something like planted substrate, smaller particle substrate, gravel even, is perfectly fine for the corys. They LOVE sand substrate, but they don't need to have it.

Light and root tabs. You'll want to force the plant to grow tall vs. wide. (bentley has a few videos on this topic, I believe you can find one in his video about lighting spectrum or his society talk he did recently). You can also emphasize the red spectrum on your light. As mentioned above, you'll want to keep the tabs where you want the plant to be, and reposition runners when you find them where you don't want it to be. You can also use rocks to stop the plant from "escaping" to other areas if you want to try that out too.

CO2 art sells (I'm sure others) an adapter to use the soda stream bottles. they'd be slightly larger and might help. Honestly. You're MUCH better off just getting a CO2 tank and a regulator. Long term you'll save money, you have the flex to be able to hook up 2-5 tanks in a general area and you will be able to have a more stable system on a timer instead of having to dose things manually.

Right there with you.

This is exactly what I was going to mention. I would keep doing water changes until the substrate stops leeching out so severely, especially given the size of the tank it might take a long time. Here's the co-op blog post on the topic. There is also a real fish talk youtube video specifically about KH and crushed coral that might be helpful. https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh If your KH testing shows you need to raise it up, then you would want to add crushed coral and keep up with water changes until things stabilize. It's a massive tank and you may end up "capping" sections of the tank with aragonite or something to try to slow down and prevent some of the leeching as well. The KH will rise, your PH will rise, GH will (or may) rise as well, but given that the plants will use some of those, it will drop off a bit. Essentially, the roof/ceiling is very high and you're going to go from say... 300+ to 330+, not too bad. The Floor (i.e. KH) is going to go from low/soft to medium and hopefully stabilize at a base where the PH and parameters stay a bit more stable long term. Mine were at low 6.x and they didn't care too much. (6.3 range). SAEs are pretty hearty and just really care and focus on eating. If you wish, check out some of the photos of my BBA/Staghorn algae issues in my tank (it's only a 29G) in my journal post and see how that compares with a bit of what you're dealing with. I've gone through everything under the sun to try to get things stable. 1. Fixing KH now. 2. Fixing lighting dead spots now 3. Giving the tank time and water changes / monitoring to fix issues long term (the race) I don't think the Fluval lights are going to cause as severe algae issues as people think. You can adjust them, and you can turn them down. The goal, the concept being that if you're running full bore 100% lights, you might just have to slow things down a bit while the tank and nutrients stabilize themselves. The sweet spot for me is about ~85% power for a "somewhat tall tank" for "plants that require a good amount of light to carpet." as far as I know for "certainty" only amano's and SAEs would reliably eat BBA. At a certain size stuff like the flying fox or CAE won't eat algae anymore. Good point. I definitely would not go that direction if that is a food you feed normally. There are species of snails that do get a bit of cover (Malaysian Trumpets for instance) but I would still be weary of that as a solution unless you don't mind the risk of losses and eggs in the tank.

Good to hear. Hopefully things work out for you. Definitely agree with you about aquabid. It's such an.... outdated resource.

Looks like that gravel would have some, but not a ton of impact. I wouldn't be afraid of using it and any buffering or calcium it would leech. Definitely sounds like oxygenation was the culprit here. I would potentially add some crushed coral just to make sure your KH doesn't dip down and try to keep the PH stable. I would test for the next month, weekly, keep an eye on KH/PH specifically and see what you feel like you need to add if anything to keep the buffer. Could be something from the soil in the potted plant?

Head over to this thread and hopefully that helps.

or tall wood helps balance the height too! I dig the species only tanks and having more of them in the tank to see how they behave socially. Having two in there, even some corys or something, shouldn't upset the tank too much and give you the variety. I dig where you're going with it.