alanmin4304

I have quite a bit of java fern and this is something it tends to do but I have no idea why. You can find completely dead black leaves where the rest of the plant looks perfectly healthy. I haven't seen it spread to all the plants so I don't know what that could be caused by.

The point I was trying to make was that you should be aware that adding calcium carbonate in any form to raise the pH will aso increase the hardness. If you don't want increased hardness you will need to get rid of it with water changes and water changes will also increase the pH as tap water is normally slightly alkaline---so why worry about the grit.

It could be more exciting than having two male fighters in the same tank. I would predict all hell will let loose if they decide to breed.

Formalin will blow your plants so that is a good thing. Goldfish usually carry gill and skin flukes and that is probably where you got them from.

If youdon't treat the whole tank you will be wasting your time as the fish will get reinfected when you put them back. The only one of the ingredients I would worry about is malachite on fish sensitive to that but that will also depend on concentration. Your plants should be OK. Quinine on its own will kill the parasites and not the plant but it is a prescription only med and would cost. There is always a risk when using meds.

The CO2 should bring the pH down.

I have individual electronic thermastats but I think they would work ok with the old bimetalic ones. They have the heater only and you need to add the thermostat. With heating from under the tank and having a growing media there is a delay and lag period from the heater going on and the thermastat picking up the rise in water temperature. Too much media will cause major fluctuations in temperature.

It is a race between the food getting eaten by the worms and the mould and the mould is winning--- you are overfeeding.

If you want to do it yourself you could go to a home brew shop and get a wine yeast, yeast nutrient and invert sugar. You could then multiply the yeast and get it working away before you connect it. Wine yeasts are stronger and inverting the sugar is the first stage of fermentation so you have the jump on it. A heater will help as well. Or you can do what I do and throw in a couple of fish.

Present your honour.

I agree. The quinine will give the flukes a huury up and the other ingredients might fix other problems. Treat the whole tank.

I gave the footprint and wattage and they put it together. I have been very happy with the result. To be clear--- it is an undertank heater and you may have problems if you want to use it to heat the gravel. My planted tank only has a thinnish layer of sand as a media and if you had much more you could have problems with the delay in the thermostat sensing the temperature and the heat stored in the media. They are not submersable and are not undergravel heaters.

I have had two made by argus to my specs and they work well. they are under the planted and multiple tanks that are on top of each other in the pics kindly shown by Caryl. They are however undertank heaters not undergravel heaters (which I have never used and know nothing about)

You have better pics of my killies than I have.

The hardness of the water has nothing to do with pH buffering. The carbonate reacts with the hydrogen ions to increse the pH and since it is there usually as calcium carbonate it leaves calcium behind which increases the hardness.

Dixon 1990--- Organisms has nigeriatum from time to time.

So long as you want hard water. It is the carbonate that buffers rather than the calcium which is already in solution.

Don't forget that when you add calcium carbonate in the form of marble, chalk, limestone, oyster shell, bird grit or whatever you are increasing the pH but also the calcium and therefore the hardness.

CO2 + H2O = H2CO3

I have a large pleco with my 3 adult turtles and they are fine, but they did grow up together from babies.

If you shake it or add more yeast I would sugest you put another coke bottle in the line to make sure you don't end up with an aquarium half full of froth.

I do some pretty massive water changes at times but I have never seen bubbles on fish although I have had bubbles on almost everything else. If it is caused by water changes it will be stressng the fish because that will be happening on the gills as well and the fish can "drown". They get their O2 from it being dissolved in the water and the gas bubbles on the gills prevents this oxygenated water from being available to them as I understand it.

In the presence of air the yeast multiplies and only starts producing CO2 as the air is pushed out and the CO2 builds up. I am not familiar with these set ups but as the other Alan is no doubt aware you can encourage the yeast to start straight away by letting it sit with a little sugar and yeast nutrient (from the home brew shop) or marmite to get it fully active before you set it up. That way it has gone through the multiplying stage and is ready to work straight away. This info is from making beer and wine as I have never used these things. MY CO2 innoculation is from putting fish in the tank---that starts immediately.

Sorry I couldn't stay long but it was great to meet some of the fish keepers from over the wee ditch as well as a few of the locals.

Killies tend to have an area which they prefer to feed from so they may be OK for top feeders. Most of my killies are not too keen on feeding from the top or bottom but will scoff anything that moves near the middle.