First Few Days Into Cycle

[waterdrop]

Yes, the reason I said that I totally don't know is that I've had concerns in the past that some of the LED products, which are quite new, are in fact somehow not giving off nearly as much usable light as the numbers would make you think they are. This same problem came up with T5's (in some of what we call "compact fluroescents" in the US) in the early years of their use. There has actually been quite a lot of change in the products themselves I believe and of course we all know many of the newer T5 products are extremely bright and significantly more efficient in energy use than the older T8 tubes. We've also probably experienced the blinding effect of the new bright LEDs in people's automobile taillights.

For me personally, one turning point early on came when I was standing in my driveway at night and realized that I couldn't make out or -do- many of the previous things I could after switching the driveway light from an incandescent to a compact fluorescent. I had chosen a bulb that claimed to give off the same light as the previous incandescent bulb (but of course which ran at a lower wattage, the efficiency being why society is moving in this direction.) I stood there and looked and I realized that the bulb looked blinding when I looked right at it but that somehow it was not lighting up the cars and areas around the cars in the same way. I swapped out to an incandescent bulb of equivalent light output and was amazed how much more the area around the cars was now lighted and I could see to do things.

The best articles I have read that try to get at really discussing this problem have actually been in the "interior designer" type sections of the New York Times. In recent years they have had a number of more in-depth dicussions about the technical problems of "directionality" and other arcane aspects of lighting devices. The "point source" of an incandescent filament I believe actually does an amazingly complete distribution of photons in a spherical geometry and leaving fewer light/shadow waves that translate into variation once you get a number of inches/feet away from the source. It really all gets surprisingly complex and quite interesting but I don't mean to imply that much of this is necessarily needed for the problem at hand (and note that in many instances, "light is just light" when it comes to providing it for plants in a aquarium, lol. Perhaps I should just say that in my opinion LED products can vary widely in the actual light they deliver to leaves.

Adam, I wish you could find and get up with one of the previous fluval edge owners who has modified to serious lighting and is growing plants. I just know they are out there. I'm sure I remember a few of them discussing it in the last year or so, I just don't have any links to who they are and it would probably need a PM to get their attention if they are still logging in here on TFF.

Meanwhile, assuming its not too expensive, experimentation is not a bad way to get going and a certain amount of common sense can possibly be used by turning on lights in a store before buying, if possible, to make sure they are not some sort of "weak" and inadequate device.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[curlyriff]

Cheers for the post WD,

Was a good read for a sunday afternoon and gave me allot to think about. I understand where you are coming from which is why I tried to ask the question hoping that there may be an instant answer from another user.

I have looked at allot of the Fluval Edge forums and they are all seeming to go down the medium/high light requirements for there tanks and using extra bulbs and the like. I have also seen people then use the same lights and then they are saying that it gives them low light so people seem to be so widely apart etc on the whole subject.

I cannot try any of the bulbs unfortunatly as no local retailer stocks any LED MR11's or MR16 and only a few Halogen versions which offer nothing new to what is standard.

I am under the impression I am just going to have to bite the bullet and pay out for a set of lights see how I get on and then if not enough or too much light adjust to suit accodingly from there.

I don't think I should see such a problem as you did with your pourch light as the bulbs are so close to the required object that I should just need a wider angle.

I have since added some bogwood with moss on (can't remember exact one) and another piece of bogwood with an anubis nana 'petite' attached too it. A friend also gave me a piece of plant that came of his but I don't know what it is. It probably won't stay long term as I don't think it is particually attractive.

This may make my testing for the cycle a little more tricky but I know what my results where and the stage I was at and at this point where I am just testing for Nitrite I should be able to make allowances for the plants.

I know my Nitrite over the first night of testing has dropped from over 5.0ppm to just under and I think this is the plant using it for food than the cycle but I will continue to add ammonia and watch it drop as before.

It had started to drop to around 16 hours for the ammonia to be used from around 4.0ppm to 0.0ppm.

What I also read was that because plants use the ammonia etc that the fish will produce that my cycle will not need to be at the same stage as a clean fishless cycle as they will do the same job as the bacteria would in the filter media so if my Ammonia drops within 12 hours like an empty tank I am in fact at a point where my bioload could be sustained.

I think that makes sense but any input appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, it is the nicest sort of aquarium when the plants and bacteria are working in tandem to clear the ammonia and nitrite and to hold the nitrate to low levels between water changes. To the extent that the plants are alive and growing, they are contributors. What we watch out for with beginners is the problem that plants are "leveragers" in that they swing the picture in both directions. If the plants are healthy and growing, they are helping the toxin filtration and in fact lowering the colony growth size sometimes. If some of the plants have trouble and begin to lose cells, then that plant debris contributes in the other direction to added ammonia above and beyond what is dosed for the fishless cycle.

This should not be a worry though if you are watchful and responsive to your tank, which you are. And you'll still be able to see and judge that the fishless cycle is reaching and end and a good point for getting fish - it will all work out. Java moss and Nana's are great low-light plants. I have a beautiful Nana that is tied to a rock! (He's easy to move around during cleaning!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[curlyriff]

Thanks WD,

Glad to know that I am understanding the basics and will make sure that I am checking and attentive to both the plant and water conditions. I am wanting to make sure that this tank is balanced so that in the end onces it is fully established in 6 months or so that it will have minimum maintance.

I have ordered some MR11 lights that claim to be equivalant of around 30watt halogen bulbs so will see how the light looks and how the plants do with them.

If it is too bright or I end up at the medium light level I may see if I can fit one bright day white (what I have ordered at moment with one warm light version) to get the colour and the lighting to the right level.

If it is still not bright enough I will try some MR16 and see if this would work in both double bright 'day' white and one bright 'day' white, one warm white.

The current bulbs only cost £13 with postage for the pair so not too bad and the warm white is around £5 so shouldn't cost too much to see.

MR16 seem to be quite a bit more at £15-£25 a piece so hopefully the MR11's are good enough.

Thanks again for your input and help. It is most appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[waterdrop]

OK, sounds good, let us know how they look when you first try them out. WD

 

[curlyriff]

Just to give you an idea what my tank currently looks like I have attached a photo below.

I am currently letting my plants use the Ammonia, Nitrite, Natrate in my tank as food. Should I be adding anything for them to live. People keep talking about ferts and TPN+ and other things but I don't really want to add anything and hope that just my bioload when I have fish will be enough to keep the plants alivbe and growing a little.

I seem to be getting a little bit of brown micro bubbles or something on the Anubis Nana so wasn't sure if this was algea or something else.

I can't photo it to show as they are so small and the camera is rather rubbish. My moss is slightly brown in places maybe I have too much or it doesn't have any food and the other plant which I don't know anything about seems to be OK. This was from a friends tank so just some off cuts and any that looked damaged are either from his fish nibling at them or from me putting them in the tank.

Any input would be helpful. I also want to order something for the water conditioner as my Nutrifin stuff is running out but all the ones I see that take both the chlorine & chloramine out of the water also takes the ammonia out which means there wouldn't be any food for the plants .

I was going to order the Seachem Prime as that is cheapest and takes care of all the metals too but not sure what would cause problems for my plants. If I use Seachem Prime do I need to use something like TPN+

Following on from what I have said in my last two posts. And since I am not busy at the moment I have been trying to read through all the different information availible. It appears that if I do say a 43% water change (10ltrs) as this is the size of my bucket where marked and I add in for instant the Seachem Prime and leave for 1 hour first and then add to my tank that the chemical used to remove the Ammonia I want for the plants and bacteria during the cycle should have either been used or disipated.

This will mean that I can continue to add the Ammonia to the tank after to raise it back up to 5ppm during my cycle.

Once this has been complete when I have my fish in I assume I will still need to do the add to bucket first as otherwise the waste that the fish do produce cannot be used by the plants and therefore I would need to dose ferts or similar.

What I should also add is when I have read through the following this is what I end up with as options:

API Stresscoat: Does not remove Ammonia or Chloramine
API Stresscoat+: Removes both Ammonia & Chloramine
ITetra AquaSafe: Removes both Ammonia & Chloramine
Nutrafin Aquaplus: Does not remove Chloramine
Seachem Prime: Removes both Ammonia & Chloramine
Seachem AmGuard: Doesn't remove the heavy metals


So from what I can tell I have to either get something that doesn't remove the Ammonia & Chloramine and then suippliment with something else to remove the Chloramine or get something that removes all of it and then add a plant suppliment such as TPN+ that the plants will require.

The other thing that I have noticed is that people talk about giving their fish a slim coat, surly if the fish are fine then they are OK without the added slimcoat you give them every water change. Does this not cause problems about extra slim at the gills etc. Other ones say that they cause the fish to create their own slim coat but does this mean we are irritating them to produce something they do not already need.

On a note about stocking as far as I have got at moment is to add 3 Kuhli Loaches. Everything else is still option although I am thinking most likely a betta as people seem to be doing fine with 1 in the tank and not had any problems with finding air as some people suggest who haven't used the Edge tanks themselves.

Any input on all my speculation would be most apprecaited before I go and buy a load of stuff I don't need or can't use.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[curlyriff]

Ignore: All in post above

 

[curlyriff]

With everything I have said before my test results at moment now that I have added plants:

Ammonia 5.0ppm to 0.0ppm within a 6-12 hour time. Nitrite is still around the 5.0ppm maybe more. It is a deeper darker purple which I believe means its off the chart at the moment & once this is dropping I know I am almost there.

Nitrate has dropped to around 10.0 and 20.0ppm for some reason but I know this test is always a little off and colouring is hard to confirm with the API kit and at same time maybe the plants are using the Nitrate (not sure they do). I always had between 40.0 & 80.0ppm before

My PH is holding steady around the 7.4 PH to 7.8 PH mark on the High PH range test compared to the 7.8PH I have had as conclusivly results before. I assume this is to do with the plants.

My anubus looks a little more healthy although stil has a little bit of the brown particals they seem to have reduced. My moss is still looking at little worse though and not really doing much. I think it is because there is no direct light at all so hopefully when the new bulbs arrive it will make a difference as too me brown moss means dying moss from what I have read.

It looked more healthy at the LFS where I got it from and was pre done on the bog wood for me two weeks prior to buying it.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, your posts cover too many questions for me to keep straight.

OK, partly we just have info you need and partly you are overthinking a lot of things.

Yes, the Seachem Prime is what you want and you don't need to worry about any of the coversions its doing. These conditioners convert the form of toxins temporarily (about a 24 hour basis) and any of this effect should basically be ignored with respect to how you think about your bacteria or cycling. The ammonia is just converted to ammonium and the bacteria are still quite happy to eat it (same goes for the nitrite, doesn't effect the bacteria.)

The moss is probably not getting enough light. The picture makes it clear that there is not nearly enough light. The brown spots (assuming its not leaf damage) is probably brown diatom algae and its quite easy to wipe (gently) off of anubia leaves with a sponge (those extra white sponges they sell for Fluval media replacements make great algae sponges.) I have the roots of my anubia tied to a rock and so I just lift out the whole thing, take it to a sink and sit there carefully wiping down all the leaves if I want to clean it. I don't let it dry out of course, but that's mostly just not forgetting it and leaving it there.

The algae is of course being greatly encouraged by the ammonia you are dosing for the fishless cycle. Your low light would normally not be enough to set it off but the ammonia is enough to cause the sports to be triggered despite the low light. More light will trigger more. But it all will change dramatically after cycling.

While stresscoat is a perfectly ok conditioner (the slime thing gets discussed but for you as a beginner its not needed and I'd just forget it) it pales in comparison to how good Prime is, in my opinion. And don't think of your plant nutrients in relation to your conditioner, there's no relation.. separate topics. Your thinking is correct that your low light situation means the plants won't be demanding nutrients, so until the light is pushing harder, its best to be very careful about nutrients.. However, that will change soon and also, is it not true that you have plants in there and are in a fishless cycle? So there are no fish to be providing the plants with some of the nutrients they need (the ammonia and nitrate from cycling, while they will be absorbed by the plants, do not represent a balanced diet for the plants.) If I were in the UK I would not hesitate to get some TPN+ (definately the Plus product in particular) and I would dose your tank in very tiny amounts and then possible raise that by a tiny bit later when the new lighting comes.

~~waterdrop~~
edit: forgot to say you also are going to need some Flourish Excel or EasyCarbo to go along with the TPN+. These are called liquid carbons and I would not overdose them.

 

[curlyriff]

Cheers WD,

Sorry for the super long post with all the questions. Was off work waiting for a man to come measure my window all day so had allot of time to think about it all and do allot of reading. Glad you said what you did about the Prime as that's what I ordered since it was the cheapest with most amounts of dosing per gallon.

I will get some TPN+ cheapest I can find it is £15.99 for 500ml. Everyone seems to like the Flourish Excel stuff so will see if I can track this down too.

Just been looking for brown diatom algae online and yeah I think thats it. All I had been doing before was taking my Anubis out wiping it with a small sponge so that seems alright and I have that under control.

Hopefully lights will be here end of week so I can make sure my moss does OK. For now I will move it and place it centrally in the tank while it is like this and see if I can put it back in place later then.

Now I assume that the TPN+ is to give the plants a balanced diet because I am not giving them everything they want at the moment.

Allot of people say plants in low tech, low light, no CO2 can live just off fish bioload. I know this is dependant on fish and amount but do the fish produce other chemicals that the plants need to keep them alive or is it better to dose a little TPN+ anyways once I get the stuff.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[curlyriff]

Hey again,

I have been lookng into the costs of the Flourish Excel & TPN+ and just for htose two bottles it is around £35 including delievery for 500ml bottles.

Now based on the 43% water change (10ltrs) I would premix the Prime & TPN+ into the bucket and leave it for an hour or so to get to tempurature.

The Excel I believe is for when I get Algea to dose that accordingly. Assuming I keep my lights on minimum time during the cycle i.e. 2-4 hours just for when I test and and do water changes etc then this should keep my Algea reduced even with the high ammonia.

At moment my tank is seeing about 8 hours a day of light which may explain the current situation but I wanted to give plants enough light at same time.

I will have to read up about the dosing quantities for TPN+ & Prime. At moment I don't know how much to dose. Although I know that you can't over nutraite the tank to cause algea growth, at least that seems to be what the planted lot say.

I am recieving some Xmas moss soon to put on some slate peices to make a slight carpet effect and cover some more of the bogwood so maybe this will help to absorb some more ammonia instead of the algea.

I am still not sure if this all makes sense. I guess I just need clarification on how the Bioload will affect things. Some people are saying that my plants will be OK with just the ammonia etc for now until I am ready for the Bioload from the fish which mean sI wouldn't need TPN+ but just to get a small bottle of Excel since it is a small tank. i.e. a 100ml or 253ml one.

Others such as yourself WD say that I should add the TPN+ now because the ammonia is not enough but does this mean I need to dose TPN+ all the time once my bioload is there. I know allot of tothers don't add anything like TPN+ and there plants are doing great so this is here my wanting to learn kind of makes me other think all this etc.

Sorry again for all these long posts. Just trying to understand allot of things all at once and I only have little bits of understanding which conflict one another for each subject.

Kind Regards,

Adam

Edit: My Prime just arrived. Accodring to what it says on the bottle I only require 0.25ml per water change for my tank.

This for one would be difficult to measure and two seems very low although working it out thats 2000 water changes and around 38 years of use assuming it didn't go out of date and I required 1 water change a week.

Not bad for £13 off ebay posted first class.

Anyways a anyone confirm the amount I require for 10ltr of water based on what I typed above.

 

[curlyriff]

Ammonia still dropping between 6 & 12 hours. Nitrite still off chart and Nitrate happy around 10.0 to 20.0ppm now.

I have moved all the plants into the middle under the light until the new ones arrive to make sure they don't die too quickly. Still haven't ordered any TPN+ cause I can't find any at a reasonable price.

I just dosed direct into tank yesterday with the prime based on the full 23ltr as thats around 1.2ml and was easier to measure.

Plants are looking OK. I pruned the Anubias a little as here where allot of leaves under each other that where getting no light so hopefully this will mean some new growth.

Any help on everything I wrote above appreciated.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[waterdrop]

Good morning Adam, sun not up yet over here but me and the cat are!

First things first, sounds like you are still in the nitrite spike and the fishless cycling sounds like its going ok, you're keeping an eye that the pH doesn't drop on you, right?

OK, on to the other topics. I did indeed need to explain my thinking a bit more, so let's start about the TPN+. My thinking there was that you would dose very small amounts, much less than they recommend, at least once you have fish. In fact, just small doses now (since the excess nitrate and ammonia may provide a bit of the nitrogen the plant wants) and then still less once the fish waste is providing a slightly more varied nutrient source. The idea being that the TPN+ will just be there to round out a few possible deficiencies in some of the more rare nutrients (each fresh change of tap water will contain some of the trace things that plants need but certainly not all of them.)

Its kind of funny but the TPN+ might almost be a very long term purchase just like the Prime for you, in that a single bottle might last you a very, very long time while you are doing low-light and need very few nutrients. The actual amount of TPN+ would be a pure guess and as long as its small is not particularly important since the water change will knock the tank levels back down later. I'd do less than one threadline in the bottle cap, more or less a number of drops (23L Edge, right?)

Yes, you now see why we steered you to Prime. It is so concentrated that a bottle lasts a very long time and the actual cost of using it then ends up to be very low, so it has high value to you. The main point of the Prime is just to be your conditioner to remove chlorine and chloramines when you do water changes. Chlorine based chemicals will burn fish gills (later, when you have fish obviously) but are also not a good idea with young bacterial colonies (very old mature bacterial colonies have pretty good resistance to accidental chlorine exposure but its still a risk.)

OK, let's move on to the Flourish Excel because I feel you may have some misunderstanding here. First, there are two other products equally good that provide the same liquid carbon as Excel, one is EasyCarbo and the other is some local chain brand of LFSs in the UK. EasyCarbo is UK-only also. Excel just happens to be the only option in the USA. So you can just shop based on price for any of the three.

The primary purpose of any of these "liquid carbon" products is not the algae reduction role, but to provide the element "C" (Carbon) in a form that the plant can absorb. Carbon is so all-important in all of biology because it forms the universal "backbone" of organic molecules - its the thing that all the other functional molecular groups that "do things" inside living organisms can hang on to and be transported around with or be anchored with in a sense.

In plants, we see that carbon forms the backbone of sugars and must be used to transport the energy that has been captured from the sun by the photosynthetic process. The sugars need lots of carbon to form and then they go down the plant carrying the energy to the crown, any tubers or fat roots and finally the roots themselves. The cells in these other parts of the plant need ATP just like all the other cells, so that they can fuel their mitochondrion engines!

So carbon is needed by the plant on a daily energy basis and stands apart from the other 16 needed nutrients. The main way most plants get carbon is from CO2 and that is many, many times more abundant on land in air than it is in the water. This is why CO2 has a bit of the status of "magic" in the underwater plant world.. its greatly needed and a lot of trouble to get!

Along come the "liquid carbon" products. They are actually delivering carbon using a very complicated molecule (unlike simple CO2) (I think the molecule actually used to be used in photography dark rooms, lol) This complicated molecule can deliver carbon in a form that many (but not necessarily all) species can use, skipping some of the early stages of thier biomachinery that transforms CO2. The end result is the same, though, that the plant is provided with carbon. Unfortunately, liquid carbon does not really ever do quite as good a job as CO2 does, leaving a definate "pecking order" in the planted tank world when you are adding carbon: pressurized CO2 delivers best, DIY has problems but still delivers better carbon when working right and finally, liquid carbon occupies third place. Liquid carbon has one great advantage though, its easy as all heck. To get started you just buy a bottle and dose carfully (do not dose more than per instructions.)

Its only a side benefit that liquid carbon also happens to be a good weapon against a lot of algaes. Especially if squirted directly at the algae using a pipette, it can kill it in many cases, although this is a thing to be done over time.

I note that you already find yourself with the questions of whether more light is needed by your plants but helps to promote the diatom algae, and whether extra ferts like TPN+ are needed in a low-light tank or not. These are classic ongoing questions, not easily answered in my opinion and part of the things that individual planted tank hobbyists experiment with and sometimes struggle with in their tanks from week to week. Also, don't forget that the environment of the fishless cycling tank and the finished and stocked tank are pretty fundamentally different from each other, so observations of plants, algae and water chemistry should be kept separate in your mind for these different tank periods.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[curlyriff]

As always WD a great read for my lunch break. Glad your about for all this. I feel like I am using allot of your time with these questions.

My lights arrived today and you can clearly see the difference in the amount of white light I have than before. Hopefully this is just the right amount to keep the plants happy without over stimluating the algea growth.

I have ordered both the Excel (which I now understand much more clearly thanks to that great right up) and the TPN+ realising that it should last me forever based on the amount I need for this tank.

I have also just recieved some Xmas moss in the post so will get that in the tank soon enough. Can I keep it floating in a bucket for a little while until I am ready to sort it out or is it advisable to put it in tank as soon as possible. I will use tank water in the bucket.

Thanks for all the help and explinations you have given me throughout this thread.

Kind Regards,

Adam

 

[waterdrop]

Fine to let plants sit in buckets while you do or decide various things. I often leave them overnight for a second snail check behind the initial one I do. Plants are fine with unconditioned tap water but I admit to using tank water and light ferts when I bucket them, or treated tap water, any which way. I've also had plants bucketed out in the shed under work bench lights, although rooted plants don't like to be out of substrate for long and all plants will bend toward light. (I just notice my anubia had rolled over in the back of the tank and has now made a bend in its upper part, darn it!) WD