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Could I add them manually each day after the water change?

Filtration is an Eheim 2250, which claims to be OK for ~1000ltrs. Its filled mainly with siporax. Water movement around the tank is from the filter return and a 1400lph powerhead. I have loads more powerheads if they are needed from the old reef tank. The DC is spot on green. I use two carbon...

I'm on a water meter...but I don't mind that. My problem is more a case of having to warm up around 300ltr of water for each water change. I'm adding CO2...but with the lack of growth I'm getting I'd say that it wasn't really needed until I get whatever the real problem is sorted. :unsure...

Hi all I'm hoping that someone can suggest a likely cause for some poor plant growth in my tank. The growth I'm currently getting is slow, and the most notable characterisitic is that the new leaves of the Aponogeton crispus grows in pale, slightly pink and deformed. Older growth looks OK, but...

Hi all After reading one of the pinned articles on keeping plants (and very informative it was too) I'd like to give the plants a siesta during the day. Only thing is that I like to see and feed the fish before I go to work at about 7am and then to have the lights on during the evening up till...

Hi all I'm having trouble judging exactly what Gh will suit most plants. I'm fairly new to looking after plants properly. I've recently added CO2 injection and I add NPK plus minerals. However,....my GH is very high at around 20....which I think is on the high side even for many plants that are...

50 bar still deserves a lot of respect though...it is around 750 psi (so like asking a big fat bloke to stand on your thumb)....and over the entire surface area of a fire extinguisher (hurried rule of thumb calculation = 400 square inches x 750) is a worrying 150 tonnes of outward pressure :crazy:

Carbon dioxide has a constant vapour pressure at a constant temperature. At round-about room temperature this is round-about 50 bar over a solid (as in a pressurised bottle). To achieve 500 bar you would have to put your gas bottle in a furnace. Just ask anyone with a CO2 bottle...it stays at...

Just thought I'd add that I've had a go at DIYing a direct CO2 feed into the back of a pwoerhead and it works a treat. Drop-tester has slowly gone from blue to green over a few days and is steady. Teh output is puffs of very fine bubble that instantly get blown around the tank. I'll tyr and get...

This may be step further than you want to go, but I got rid of mine with a series of daily 10% water changes, UV steriliser in line with the filter return, one day with the lights off. It seems that blue-green algae jumps-ship in the dark as it completely fragmented (probably hopes to settle...

wow....that's sparkling clean. What's the plant on the left (some kind of lilly)? Kev

Sorry...didn't explain myself very well Internal reflection always occurs with light hitting glass (or any transparent surface where there is a change of density) at an oblique angle. You can see this in action with your tank....press your face up against the glass and look up...you can't see...

Hi all I was just working out my watts/gallon, and they are in the low range. In part this is due to the depth of my tank, at 2ft deep. It seems to me though that although light spreads out with distance, internal reflection of the tank sides keeps most of light in...so msot of the light...

Hmmm...not keen on multiple diffusors. They seem a bit invasive and labour intensive. Also, being a real miser, I'm not keen in investing in a new pin-wheel pump. I might look at DIYing a pin-wheel of sorts for the powerheads I have though :crazy: Another possiblity that occurs...I have a...

Not sure about the needle point powerhead....is this the sort with the special impellor used in protein skimmers? I have one of these on the Deltec skimmer which is still out in the garage, but would prefer not to use it on the tank. The general powerheads I have are the standard 1000 litre per...

Hi again I'm new to CO2 injection and even planted tanks. I have a roughly 700 litre tank (720 litre but less with rocks, sand, etc) and I want to set up CO2 injection at about 15ppm. I always enjoy the challenge of keeping my expenditure down, and am happy to do a bit of DIY. One way I was...

I was wondering if it would be possible to modify a powerhead such that the CO2 is delivered directly into the turning blade. I was hoping this would generate an extremely fine mist of bubbles that would then circualte around the tank. I have a whole box full of redundant powerheads from my...

Lots of information there :good: My tank is 720 litres running on 160w t5 lighting plus a fair amount of natural light as the tank is in a conservatory. Even with the natural light I'm guessing that it is getting a medium amount of light, so I think I will go for about 15ppm CO2 to start and...

Nitrogen deficiency could be the cause I guess...I've added quite a few plants, I don't fertilise (yet) and the local water authority parameters suggest that the water going in at water changes is fairly low in NO3....I'll get myself a NO3 test and do some searches on how to dose nitrates...

That may be one of them....but there are three different sorts (one definitely being giant vallis...the leaves are about an inch across and 4 ft long) and they are all producing bright pink leaves. I just wondered if it meant a shortage or an excess of a nutrient? Kev

Being new to plants I guess you are going to have to put up with a lot of dumb questions from me....todays possibly dumb question: My vallis seems to be producing pink leaves. This is the same for my twisted, giant and small (don't know the proper name) vallis. It looks pretty to me, but I was...

I was wondering.....if it is possible simply to use tank water with a fairly random dKH in the drop tester (although not optimal)....why is there such a fuss about using EXACTLY 4dkh solution? Surely 3.5dkh or 4.5dkh or even 10dkh solution would be better than using my 13dkh tank water??? Kev

OK...I may invest in some dKH 4 solution to use with my test then....since I shall be using it to guide how much CO2 to add. Thanks Kev

Hi all I was jsut wondering if anyone else was using the Yinsheng CO2 tester? I've just had mine delivered and the instructions seem to be saying to use aquarium water plus the indicator solution in it. Most other tests seem to suggest using a dKH 4 solution, whereas my aquarium water is a dKH...

I doubt it....the reefkeeping may mean I have the patience needed and the sense to seek out people who know what they are talking about, but I also know that experience makes a huge difference.....and right now I have none of that with planted tanks. Thanks for the link....I'll go and have a...

Hi all Firstly....I'm completely new to planted tanks with any degee of technology. Prior to my current tank I had a reef tank, in which I got accustomed to stepping up to a tank that was stuffed with gadgets, only use experience to step down to minimal technology (reef tank with skimmer-less...