New Tank - Bubbles and Metal

[nonot8946]

Here's a picture of my new tank

I have two questions:

1) There are tiny bubbles all over my tank...Would this be caused by the power filter. It also seems like the output of my power filter is causing a tiny bubblestorm, making all the water in the tank seem slightly cloudy-white. Or did I mess up something in setting the tank up.

2) See that hunk of wood floating in the left corner - the slate block it mounted to chipped and the screw slipped through the hole. I need to add a washer to it...what type of washer should I get that would be safe - zinc? stainless steel? regular old steel?

Tank specs:
75 gallon
160 Watts of shop lighting @ 6500K
silica sand, .75" depth or so.

The plants are:
hygrophilia on the left
hornwort on the back left and floating
spiral val in the middle and right
banana plant front left
anacharis in the back

In front of the driftwood piece are a few larger chunks of plants that broke off, they don't have any roots, but I figured I'd at least give them a chance at survival, so I stuck them in there.

I want to add java fern and a big sword as a centerpiece plant...any recommendations on the type of sword?

 

[itZme]

Hi,
When I do large water changes (50% or more) I have those tiny bubbles all over the glass. After about 6 hours or so they all merge together and move up to the surface then disappear. I have seen some power filters with adjustable oxygenation features but I would assume they need an air intake above the waterline to oxygenate the filtered water.
I would think that the safest washer for your slate pc would be Stainless steel since it shouldn't break down in the water. They are available at most hardware stores (usually in the assorted nuts & bolts drawers)
Most SS washers I have bought are about 30-50 cents US as compared to the regular ones that go for 3 cents or so.

Good luck with the new tank

itZme

 

[BobK]

Definitely don't get steel or copper. Steel will rust and copper will leach into the water. I'm almost positive zinc is safe but I agree, go for the stainless.

 

[nonot8946]

thanks for replying....I found the bubbles were mostly gone this morning. I decided to play it safe and used a plastic washer.

I was thinking that a rusting regular washer might provide iron for the plants , but I think I'd want to experiment with that more carefully before trying something like that in my main tank.

My plants seem to be handling the change not so great.

The hornwort looks great. The hygro looks OK and I have noticed that it orientated itself to the light overnight. The anacharis looks very bad, it seems to be turning quite brown. The spiral val seems to be becoming transparent in a few areas and it doesn't look so great. The banana plant is unchanged from when I purchased it.

Ammonia is holding steady at ~3ppm. I don't know if I can wait another 2 weeks! Patence is a virtue....patience is a virtue...

 

[Yenko]

The only metal that is truly safe is aluminum, but only if your PH is between 6.0 and 8.0.