GrahamC

So, if you want to increase the dissolved O2, and prevent loss of CO2, which is better? I have read that air stones remove too much CO2, but can't see why the same doesn't happen with just surface agitation.

Some people also put plants into quarantine tanks as well as fish bought from elsewhere to avoid transferring disease into your tank. Eg, recent posts include unknown fry being introduced, algae, hydra, and of course snails.

can apparently also use liquid paint stripper instead of Weldon http://blog.makezine.com/2011/09/26/using-liquid-paint-stripper-as-acrylic-cement/

You use Weldon which recreates the chemical bonds between the two pieces of acrylic. Have a look at the youtube videos on the subject. Dunno where you get it in NZ though ...

To give you an example, in my goldfish tank of 160L or thereabouts, I had 10 ppm of nitrate 4 days ago. Today, I have 20-40 ppm, so best case for me is increasing nitrates of 20 ppm per week. Goldfish like to eat plants so finding enough inedible plants for the tank to lower the nitrate production is a problem.

When you feed your fish protein, nitrogen accumulates in your tank. Without a lot of plants to remove the nitrates, it will accumulate in the water. Hence the availability of nitrate testing kits. On the other hand, levels of 400 ppm have in at least two species of fresh water fish been shown not to affect their life cycle, and levels of 1000 ppm may be needed to kill. Nitrates are not normally found in most natural fish environments. Furthermore anaerobic bacteria can convert nitrates back to nitrites. Given that there is some disagreement on the long term side effects of high nitrates in the water, most people still do partial water changes to remove them. More reading for you here http://theaquariumwiki.com/Nitrate

Even if understocked, a tank without plants will accumulate nitrates which will need to be removed. A heavily planted tank might get away without partial water changes for 3 months or more.

It's not science based but a contract between you and the universe. Note that if you are short of time to create good Karma yourself, you can purchase Karma offsets. See

Some plants do better planted, and you can do that without a substrate in your tank. Just get some nylon stocking, put some topsoil in it, stick the plant minus the pot into it, and then tie it around the base so that the dirt doesn't get into your tank. Drop back into tank. Other aquatic plants use their roots only for tethering to rocks, and wood etc like the popular java fern. All their nutrition is absorbed through the leaves. Other plants float on the top such as duckweed. The plants that eventually grow out of the water ( emerse ), or float, are said to have the aerial advantage as they can get their Co2 directly from air and so grow better than those that grow submersed.

Plants often come in small pots. Just chuck them into the water and let them sink. They'll absorb ammonia and ammonium thru their leaves for you. Presumably the LFS will be using the same source water as yourself, but plants that grow in soft water also do well in hard water as you have.

How about a heavily planted tank to remove the heavy metals from the water?

It's not crucial. I find it easier to divide into 1/4s so I just do a 25% water change using my fingers to divide the height of the water. Previously I measured it out and then marked to where I would fill it too, and where I would change the water using some tape.

You can put in as many filters as you like. Having two filters means redundancy in case one dies. And you clean alternate filters. And you can cut down the amount of artificial lighting needed with some controlled sunlight.

I think it's a typo. It's supposed to be "flea flip". It's a pair of tweezers with a blunt end. You can use it to flip a flea on to its back so it can't bite your pet. Or, if you wish, you can grab the flea and drop it into your fish tank. Note that this is a karma neutral activity as although you get negative karma for killing the flea, you get points for feeding your fish.

the whole site is in setup mode ...

Looks like the issue is with the PN water supply. http://www.pncc.govt.nz/servicesandfacilities/commonservices/waterservices/discoloured-water-and-swabbing-information/

I've seen water like that come out of the tap at Kumeu when I was working there many years ago. I think the guy had a well though. Where is this place?

Other things being equal, then hard water will have a higher osmotic pressure than soft water.

Before you blame this guy, one day for incubation to symptoms is very short .. you may have got it from someone else. You can now try salt baths, saline humidifier, and turning up the heat in the bath. That should also treat any ich infections you picked up from the fish in your immuno-compromised state!

Well 6 weeks to develop the biological filtration, and then stopping the filter for varying periods, waiting for the filter to recover etc. Reproducing the results to confirm. Sounds like a decent long project to me. :thup:

Since the OP is buying this Eheim, let's continue this topic divergence here The problem is that we don't have any experimental data on what really happens. Just anecdotal reports like Ira's, and others who report their filters are fine off after 3 days. Given the latter, it is hard to believe that many die off overnight. Eg. I have a Aqua One 104F internal filter rated for 1480l/hr in my tank, and that gets turned off each night, and left off for days with no ammonia spikes. But I also run sponge filters in the tank all the time. We read of stories of UGF that block up and then people lose the whole tank overnight. In that situation I suspect a build up of H2S and methane in an hypoxic tank is the cause of the loss. (H2S is much less of a problem in oxygenated water) But the bacteria/bugs didn't die, they just converted to different metabolic pathways creating toxic substances. Other recommendations you read about along this line are after an outage is to take your cannister filter material out and wash it in tank water before restarting your filter. Maybe someone who is in secondary school could take this on as a science project to give us some hard data !

What do you think the mechanism of this was? I doubt it would be just ammonia and nitrite build up as people ship fish around the country bagged for 1-2 days mostly without loss and clearly no filtration. Stories like this make me think we should try and rely on the whole system for filtration and not just one main electro-mechanical device i.e. avoid single point of failures.

Your assumption is that the bacteria/bugs inside your filter will die off instantly. They don't. Some might die overnight, but others will go into a resting phase, some will start denitrifying instead removing nitrate from their environment, and eventually some will spore .. and still be alive millions of years later. More likely than not, your filter and its microbial population will be fine overnight. You might lose a few million bugs which then become food for the other billions. But to be sure you could test it. I was just discussing the scenario where you had a noisy filter, and what you could do about it. Or, what happens in a power failure.

That's my point ..they don't all die off just because the water stops circulating for a few hours.

Curiously I spotted something today wriggling away in my tank. I was wondering how it got there, and how to get it out safely when a school of goldfish swam by and it was gone! &c:ry I wondered if it had come from the plant I bought in the weekend from the LFS as the goldies are too young to breed.