Ishar's 20GH Planted tank

[jen0910]

The hairgrass looks nice. Hitchhikers are always fun, last time I got an unidentified extra plant I found out later that it was carniverous.

[ishar]

wow! a carnivorous plant underwater?! That would be so sweet! lol if you didn't mind your fish getting eaten :S hehehe. I wouldn't mind mine being carnivorous- I have WAY too many guppy fry right now :S.

[jen0910]

lol, it isn't big enough to eat fish, only microscopic life, though I think there are some bigger ones that can eat tiny snails.

[ishar]

wow- that is pretty sweet Did you keep it?

Tank related news: I shortened my light period to ten hours for over the week I am gone, as I noticed A LOT of BBA on my smaller piece of wood, and I figure with no ferts and shorter light times maybe the plants can out compete it for the CO2 for the week I am gone. I will see the results when I get back and see how it worked. After spring break I think I am going to add another bottle of C02 to my tank and stop excel, and reduce my fert dosing again and then bring it back up to where I think the good level is. I will start at 0.5mL per day of both N and flourish to start, and each week I will see how the plants and algae faired and then adjust the ferts accordingly.

[RoxnSox]

i really like that alot looks very cool

[ishar]

thanks roxnsox I am glad you do

[Big Vine]

Good stuff...should be interesting to watch it fill in as the plants flourish!

Originally Posted by ishar

my water supply now has chloramine in it and thus I have a bit of ammonia that is going into my tank each water change. It disappears in a day or two though when the plants soak it up, so I am not worried about it.

Hmm...I wouldn't let it slide this easily...
Sure, the plants will absorb it eventually, but your fish will still be exposed to it in the meantime---and in fluctuating levels each time you do a water change. If I were you, I'd get me some Seachem Prime and condition the tapwater with it from now on. It will detoxify the ammonia by converting it to a less harmful state. The plants will still absorb it, and your fish should thank you for it as well.

BV

P.S. My tapwater also contains chloramine, which results in a 0.5 PPM ammonia reading.

[ishar]

Thank BV. The problem is that I have already spent money on regular conditioner and I don't think I have the receipt anymore and I would hate to buy more and not use the other. Sounds cheap, I know, but I guess it's how I feel :P. I am considering doing biweekly 5G w/c because this would decrease the levels of ammonia the fish are exposed to, but it would make them exposed longer.... not sure. I got this information from Chlorine, article "Chlorammine == Ammonia?"

The concentration of the released ammonia will be related to the concentration of the original chloramine. I can't remember the details, but the resultant concentration depends on whether you have mono or di-chloramine (NH2Cl or NHCl2); John Kuhns says it is likely the later. Anyway, the resultant ammonia concentration is something similar to the chloramine concentration. So, I think we are talking about 1 to 2 ppm (mg/l) of ammonia (to be diluted according to the % water change). For 50 % change you can have 1 ppm of ammonia. The amount of this that is toxic to fish will depend mostly on pH but also on temperature. (There is an equilibrium between toxic NH3 and non-toxic NH4). Worst case is high pH and high temperature.
At 8.5 pH and 86 deg, 20 percent would be toxic NH3 (~ 0.2 ppm). This is a
lot and roughly corresponds to lethal dose for 1-hr exposure. This does not
apply to all fish; goldfish can live in windex :-)

I then, when looking for that equilibrium temperature, I found this site, Free Ammonia Calculator, and it asks for pH and ammonia readings. I do not have a pH test kit, so unfortunately until I get one I cannot know for sure.

I used the input of temperature = 25 degrees C as this is my tank temperature. I used an ammonia reading of .5ppm as that is what happens when I change my water. I then varied the pH to go in 0.25 intervals from 5 to 9, to make sure I cover the likely (and even not so likely) range pf pH in my tank. The calculator gave me these results as well as others:

# (pH); #ppm (free ammonia)
5 ; 0.000028432544659620436 ppm
6 ; 0.00028418000730272226 ppm
7 ; 0.0028273375624625605 ppm
8 ; 0.026904166723663372 ppm
9 ; 0.1812613343556084 ppm

I also created a graph of these findings so when I get a pH tester kit I can quickly guesstimate for myself what the free ammonia reading is. As you can see, the higher the pH, the higher the free ammonia levels, and the max, at a .5ppm total ammonia reading is less than .2ppm. This is a scary level, as is, for me, anything over .1ppm. The results can bee seen in the graph. I ran the series of inputs for a .25 ammonia reading but it is exactly half of the .5 reading (go figure :P).

NOTE: The graph uses a 30% error allowance that I add in later, as I am not entirely sure if I trust this calculator that much, as well as to allow for temperature fluctuations, especially during the w.c..

Having said this I am not too too worried about my fish. Mind you I keep a very good eye on them after the water change and if I ever see anything go wrong, I will get my butt down to my LFS to get some prime, or at least some ammonia neutralizer. Hopefully I can catch any behavioral anomalies like red gills, frantic breathing, surface habitation before any deaths occur- so far even the smallest of guppy fry and neon tetras have been fine.

Thank you for your concern BV- it spurred me to do some research and find out about this ammonia stuff. I am not using this and saying ammonia is ok, more as a guideline to know when I will really be in trouble, and to know that in general there is likely less toxic levels of ammonia in my tank than shown by my total ammonia test kit.

[ishar]

Oh wow.

That's all I have to say about my tank right now LOL.

I came home after a week of being away. While gone the fish were not fed and the light time was reduced by 2 hours I believe. Well.

CO2 ran out. My new vals and hairgrass had some slight dying off and uprooting respectively, littering the tank a little. My glosso also had a bit of uprooting- littering the tank a little more. My filter is somehow clogged (have not investigated yet) so not very much was getting moved around.

I have an entire tank covered in hair algae, diatoms, BBA, random plant fragments, and my filter outlet has long strands of algae of brown colouring with a bit of green too. My water is a little green as well.

Good news. Hairgrass is loving my tank, with new strands already and it's spreading, my glosso has taken off and is starting to form a bit of a carpet, my new vals are not quite dead (but the tips are- I'll be trimming). My old jungle vals, while not growing very tall, there are many new daughter plants around and all have some good growth down near the bottom half of the tank. Also the moss I tied thinly on the wood is loving that- lots of new growth and almost looks like Christmas moss . No fish or shrimp deaths either, with new fry looking very good colour wise.

So I am off now to get some batteries so I can snap some pics for you all- you will want to see this for sure haha.

I am not upset or worried at all. My java ferns are not liking whatever is growing on them (diatoms I think) but all my other plants are thriving, and the fish don't seem to mind either. I am looking forward to adjusting everything week by week to find the balance that the plants need . I will keep the front pane of glass clean for viewing but other than that I won't be touching a thing .

[ishar]

Well my batteries ran out on my cam and then I went to buy more... but either I was sold two packages of bad batteries or somethin' is up with my camera . So I snapped some laptop pics- I need to clean this tank, so I couldn't wait for more batteries or for my camera to fix itself. I hope they get the idea across.



You can't tell from the pictures, but my rotala has grown almost an inch, my bacopa has also grown quite a bit, my grass has spread, my glosso has spread, my fern is not liking whatever algae is on it, and my new vals are melting a bit with the old vals spreading like mad. The small piece of wood is COVERED in BBA, and my glass is COVERED in hair algae and some normal green spotty stuff.