Derek

Link for the aquatic plant list http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/

Exactly and as I have been pointing out this makes the formula you gave (without any other criteria) absolutely meaningless. Any figure could be a "starting point". If you created bubbles 1/2 the size, then in theory, they should have been coming out of the tube 8x as fast. The DIY generator makes the same amount of CO2 per minute regardless of the tubes diameter. In fact the smaller bubbles may even increase the amont of CO2 dissolved in the water. This assumes that your reactor is not 100% efficient and the fact that a smaller bubble presents a larger surface area per volume than a large bubble does. Consequently more CO2 can de dissolved during the time the bubble is in contact with the water. Make sure you read up about the relationships between CO2 concentration, ph and KH before blindly relying on the "DUPLA DAUERTEST indicator" A good start would be http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/ Cees has given a much better "starting point" when he describes ideal conditions than any formula simply relying on a count of bubbles ever will.

Getting back to Kevin's original question. That initial burst of "pearling" suggests that you had conditions (if only for 4 hours) that supported that degree of photosynthesis. You should be able to recreate those conditions. The most likely senario (or at least the one I would look into first) is that prior to adding the CO2 your plants growth was limited by the available concentration of CO2. Once you corrected this by adding CO2 another factor became rate limiting. The most likely factor(s) is/are one of the micro nutrients. Do you use any supplemental fertilization of the water column in your tank?

Hi John

Hi John, A formulae for determining bubble frequency would be handy to determine a starting point. But I have a problem with such a simple formula, as given. Other factors aside for now, did this site mention the size of bubble? Did it also mention if it was refering to a DIY yeast produced CO2 or CO2 from a gas cylinder? Obviously the size of bubble relates to the amount of gas available to be dissolved in the aquarium water. The source of CO2 also relates to the amount of gas available as the % of CO2 in the gas mixture varies between these two sources. Without these factors (as well as others) the formula; number of bubbles = aquarium liters X 13 / 100 is meaningless. For example, say I have a 100litre aquarium, how does "knowing" I have to add 13 bubbles of CO2 help me. I'm not getting at you, but I do have a problem with this formula.

Don't worry about 0.03. The important thing is that the pH is calibrated accurately. Did you get any buffers of known pH to calibrate your pH meter with? If it is not calibrated correctly it could be reading pH 6 when the real pH is 7 or even vice verca.

Aaaah! So thats why you can't get my cryptic clue. To busy thinking about ejaculations.

Ira, If you want to determine how much baking soda needs to be added to your tank without overshooting 7. Try the following. 1. Make up a stock solution of baking soda (the actual concentration doesn't matter) For example, several tablespoons in a couple of cups of water. 2. Take a litre of aquarium water and start adding the stock solution to it incrementally and record how much you have added. Raid your medicine cabinet for the mesuring cup used to measure out cough syrup etc so you can be "reasonably" accurate. 3. Measure the pH after each addition. 4. Once you have reached pH 7 extrapolate how much is needed to do the same in your aquarium. For example if it took 10mls of stock solution to bring 1 litre of aquarium water to pH 7 then it would take 500mls of stock solution to do the same to a 50 litre aquarium 5. Still add the baking soda to your tank slowly and monitor the pH as you do it. You will not have an exact measurement of the water volume in your tank. I would also check your ammonia levels. If they are detectable go and get some ammolock.

I have an ozelot sword which has been sending up a flower stalk over the last week or so. This morning I noticed that that the flower at the tip of the stalk has opened submersed. This is about half way to the surface of a 600mm deep tank. Previously this plant has flowered at the surface. Is this a symptom of a nutrient defficiency/excess or some other factor?

Personally I would go for a cannister or wet/dry filter. Does depend a bit on what you define as a planted tank however. You could have a very nice tank with an undergravel filter and using plants attached to stones and/or driftwood. The various types of java fern ( normal, "tropica" and "windelov"), Bolbitis fern, and perhaps Anubias nana as well as java moss and riccia attached to some small stones in a "limited" area of the tank. On top of that you could pot a "few" plants and hide them behind the wood and rock.

Hi Dawn, I would just start doing regular 20% weekly water changes and see where the pH levels off at. It should end up higher than present. Your original post suggests that your tank has probably cycled allready. This shows you have no ammonia, a little nitrite and are starting to see nitrate. Therefore all the ammonia is being converted to nitrite and a proportion of that is now being converted to nitrate. By now there is a good chance that all your nitrite is being converted to nitrate. A natural and unavoidable consequence of this process is that your pH will drop, as you have discovered. This is also being aided by organic acids leaching from the wood. They are not toxic, so don't get worried about them in that sense If water changes do not help then I would try adding baking soda rather than pH up. pH up will help the pH problem but you run the risk of suffering algae problems. It will also make your KH test meaningless. Warren has covered how to add baking soda in another post under the thread "KH tester". What does intrigue me is that both of your tanks have had a drop of equal proportions in the same time frame. Has anything else changed that might have contributed to this? At the end of the day you have had a drop in pH of 0.8 at the very most over at least an 18hr period. This is not a "sudden" drop. It has occured gradually over a period of time. The fact that your fish all appear happy suggests that problems with ammonia poisioning or acidosis are not an issue. On top of that the pH has remained stable at 6.0 from 9:30 this morning so it appears that a new equalibrium may have established itself. Don't panic or worry to much about it. Just take slow steady steps to address the issue and continue to monitor the pH.

John1 says: Sorry to no doubt bore everyone with technical details but the problem is no one is defining the units they are talking about: for example 17.9ppm is meaningless if you don't say what it is ppm of. 1GH is defined as the "hardness" of a solution when 10mg of CaO is dissolved in 1 litre of water. The Molecular Weight (MW) of CaO is 56 Therefore 10/56 = 0.179millimolar. However most kits give there answer in eqivalents of CaCO3 The MW of CaCO3 is 100. Therefore you would need 17.9mg/l (17.9ppm) of CaCO3 to produce an "equivalent" hardness to a 10mg/l solution of CaO Lets say you do a measurement of GH and get an answer of 1GH. That does not mean you have 17.9 ppm CaCO3. What it is saying is that the total net concentration of substances contributing to the hardness is "EQUIVALENT" to that provided by 17.9mg/l of CaCO3 or 10mg/l CaO. Just saw your reply Cees while I was writing mine. That was what I suspected. So if anyone has any buffering system in their aquarium other than just carbonates (i.e. using phosphate buffers to alter the pH) then these tests are pretty useless or at least misleading.

Does anyone "know" what if any compounds may interfere with the results from this type of KH test. I am unfamiliar with the chemistry of these tests but do phosphates or tannic acids from wood or peat, for example, interfere. If so do they tend to gve an artificiallly high or low reading and is there any way to correct for it.

It's not absolutely correct but the easiest way to covert mg/L to ppm is to multiply by 1

I am surprised that a Vortex diatom filter is unavailable in Australia. They are certainly available in New Zealand. The club I belong to purchased one a couple of years ago for the use of club members. Try going to http://www.diatomfilter.com/Default.htm and asking if they have an Australian distributor.

Another drug which is effective on camallanus is flubemol 5% at a dose of 200mg/100litres. Although it doesn't work as quick as levamisole appears to. It is marketed as a treatment for nematodes in poultry and pigs. I obtained a sample from a company called Nutritech. I keep the container at work so I can accurately way out the required amount. I'm sure it has contact details for the company on the label so I will post those tomorrow. It is also a good treatment for flukes, capillaria and I recently discovered it is also very effective against hydra. One major drawback (depending on your point of view) is it kills snails, all except those very small ramshorn types with the translucent shells. (does anything kill those?) Flubenol 5% does not have any effect on eggs, does levamisole?

Great recipe Warren, much more complete than the one I used to prepare. wish I had known this trick years ago, I kept on using gelatin which wasn't much good as it breaks down in the freezer and melts at higher "discus" temperatures. Try putting the mix inside a plastic bag and then flatten to required thickness. No worry then about the mix oozing out the sides.

Good question Caryl. It is not something I have ever thought about before, so my answers are just musings on my part. They may or may not be correct. Plants not only use light for photosynthesis. They also need light to synthesise chlorophyll. Fortunately they use the same wavelengths for both, mainly in the blue and red parts of the spectrum. In the green-yellow part of the spectrum some photosynthesis can occur but very little cholorphyll synthesis takes place. Another requirement for the synthesis of cholorphyll is iron. Iron is one of those nutrients that the plant cannot translocate from a store in one part of the plant to another part. If there is an iron defficiency new leaves look white or translucent due to a total lack of chlorophyll. In contrast magnesium is a nutrient that can be translocated. This is why a sign of magniesium defficiency is yellowing between the veins in OLDER leaves. The plant is moving magnesium from the older leaves to the growing shoots. So I guess the plant itself considers the growing tips more important than older established leaves. The growing shoots must have sufficient light intensity of the correct wavelengths to produce chlorophyll. The lower leaves that are shaded by other plant leaves will receive a greater proportion of their light in the green-yellow part of the spectrum as the leaves above them will have absorbed some of the other colours. However these leaves will still be able to use this light for photosynthesis. Although photosynthesis will not be driven anywhere near its maximium rate under these conditions. So to answer your question I would say that all parts of the plant need sufficient light to maintain good health but it is the top or growing shoots that require the most. Another way to put it would be insufficient light at the base of a plant will not kill the plant but insufficient light at the top of a plant will. Different plants require different amounts of light which is why your rotala is growing well at the top of your tank and not so well at the bottom, while the Anubias and the "mini Val" (which is probably a sagitteria species) are doing OK in less intense light at the bottom.

Gotta agree with most of what you say Warren, including the fact that depth obviously has a bearing on how much light you need above the tank. Assuming it is not going to impact on your article would you care to comment on the following. There is an old (1973) TFH book (Light in the aquarium by Rolf Kubler, Catalogue Number PS-301) which goes into the relationship between watts, lumans, surface area and depth. Basically the equation is N = (ExS)/(24xd) Where N=answer in Watts E= desired lux at bottom of tank S=surface area in square meters 24 is a constant ( the author does not say how he derived it) d=wastage factor dependent on water depth (d is obtained from a table in the book) i.e. at 20cm d=0.82 at 60cm d=0.55 Of course certain assumptions are made: 1. The water is almost colourless, no peat filtration etc. 2.The cover glass is clean 3.The reflector is of good quality. Although this seems very detailed it still leaves you effectively choosing the watts because you have to guess the correct light intensity (lux) that you want at the bottom of the tank. Any change in this guess, changes the "calculated" watts. As such I have always felt this formula loses its usefulness. It appears to me that some rule of thumb such as X watts/litre is the best we can ever hope for, as much as I would like something better. What am I missing here?

Thanks for the comments Paul. Let me know when you think your place is respectable and I'll certainly be up for a visit.

Generally vegetables should be fed raw. Cooking destroys some of the nutritional content, especially vitamins. The main reason for cooking vegetables is to make them sink. Blanching is a compromise which allows veges to sink without destroying too many vitamins, etc. Although there are differing opinions on the usefulness of blanching. Different foods for different species (and as Caryl has alluded to) sometimes even different individuals. I have just put zuchini in a tank for some bristlenose fry and now I can hardly see the zuchini for the swarms of fry all over it. Almost all veges could be tried, carrot, potato, pumpkin, yams, broccoli, cabbage leaves, etc. The one exception is iceberg lettuce, apparently it contains an acid that binds iron in the liver. I have also noted that the bristlenose most commonly available in NZ (Ancistrus lineolatus) also likes a little bit of meat based foods in it's diet. The largest male I have ever had grew up in a tank with some Discus and was always first on the scene at feeding time when I fed my homemade beefheart mix.

Yes Cees I was kidding. Well I think I was kidding, I had to leave before the auction so I have no idea what Ira paid good money for.

"little lily pads" aka Lemna minor aka Duckweed For $2 I hope you got a big bag of it Ira

Good to have you back Paul. Where have you shifted to? I dont know for certain if this is the "true" A.barteri var barteri. I believe A.b. var barteri can be very variable in form. Do you know what characteristics to look for in the flower which would identify a plant as A.b. var barteri as opposed to someother variety. Looking at the Tropica site the only other Anubias that is somewhat similar is Anubias heterophylla, although going by the watercolour this plant has brighter green leaves. Not that that is anything to go by. I also have what I assume is Anubias barteri var. angustifolia, although again the tropica site mentions that it grows 10-15cm high. In emmersed growth mine has leaves (including petiole) 30-35cm long.