Rebuilding an old abandoned 29g

[FishHobby99]

So you‘re considering adding fish to this someday & getting the other new tank? Old tank looking spiffy.

 

[MonsieurLaGrenuoille]

No one of the experts here has come down to give you some advice? That's odd I find, I would have liked, you know my English is comme ci comme ca and I'm not the ultimate expert, though I can tell you some advice but this is still my own point of view and may differ from that of others.

First of all must be said this is not correct that the gravel or sand would cause the diatomees to come into the aquarium and then disappear after the silicates are depleted, sand doesn't leach silicates this way. Where did you heard this mon ami? Yes ,they need this silica to form their armor and mostly of the silica comes out of your tap water, what comes from the sand isn't relevant, definitively that's not the cause wgoldfarb, believe me. In addition, this silica transform in the tank in SiO2 that cannot be used by the diatoms at all if the aquarium is reasonably runnig and well established, you know, bacteria, plants and everything is fine.

You should know this first, forget the sand. In my experience the best way to avoid the algae is to put plants from the beginning, otherwise you'd have to "start" the aquarium twice, first without plants, and then a second time for the plants, what is absurd, the tank will have sort of remodel a second time because the plants will change everything and unfortunately you will always have a large amount of algae there, having the plants from the beginning will reduce or even resolve that problem, anyway they will create the right conditions of water quality and establish themselves with their bacteria and microorganisms and therefore stop the coming of the algae. For the algae is a too high amount of nutrients in the water such as phosphates and others the main problem, so dont forget to have this problem controled. So you are right in point 2 of your letter, I would say.

Furthermore I would recommend you not to use some of the silica or phosphate removers at all, they will only make all this more complicated (I want to give you the advise to do things in a natural way, that works always better).

For your tank and the animals you want to keep it is as you already know soft water with a slight sour PH better, it will also help against the diatoms, I would recommend you a strong lamp for the plants and to have always some floating plants to reduce the intensity of light (I mean floating but under the surface of water, you will have to remove them periodically because they will grow very well), some kind of Ceratophyllum, or Limnophila or Ceratopteris, I find some Riccia fluitans looks very fine too, the floating plants contribute a lot to the wellfare of your fish and other animals.

I would like to suggest you to to try keeping some little Neocaridina shrimps, they are good algae eaters, its a pity you don't like snails but the Melanoides are very usefull snails that keep the soil healthy by burying themselves in and loosing and oxigenating it, they will also feed any organic rubish in the tank and keep it clean.

Don't forget to wash the sand or gravel very well before starting the tank, water must come clear after the final washing, I always buy the sand in a pet shop and not elsewhere, it's maybe safer and don't cost the whole world, with 4€ I can buy 5 kg here.

Well if I might help you in whatever question you have I will very pleased, have a nice day.

 

[wgoldfarb]

So you‘re considering adding fish to this someday & getting the other new tank? Old tank looking spiffy.

I've already purchased the new tank, just waiting for it to arrive Since this one requires new silicone seals I wasn't comfortable filling it again. I need to redo the seals but I've never done that before, so for now I'll get the new tank started -- much easier. If/when I get around to redoing these seals I might set it up as well, or donate it to my kids' old school.

 

[MonsieurLaGrenuoille]

The silicon holds where the glasses meet each other, I don't think it will leak at all, you should keep it as a quarentene or emergency tank in any case.

 

[wgoldfarb]

No one of the experts here has come down to give you some advice? That's odd I find, I would have liked, you know my English is comme ci comme ca and I'm not the ultimate expert, though I can tell you some advice but this is still my own point of view and may differ from that of others.

First of all must be said this is not correct that the gravel or sand would cause the diatomees to come into the aquarium and then disappear after the silicates are depleted, sand doesn't leach silicates this way. Where did you heard this mon ami? Yes ,they need this silica to form their armor and mostly of the silica comes out of your tap water, what comes from the sand isn't relevant, definitively that's not the cause wgoldfarb, believe me. In addition, this silica transform in the tank in SiO2 that cannot be used by the diatoms at all if the aquarium is reasonably runnig and well established, you know, bacteria, plants and everything is fine.

You should know this first, forget the sand. In my experience the best way to avoid the algae is to put plants from the beginning, otherwise you'd have to "start" the aquarium twice, first without plants, and then a second time for the plants, what is absurd, the tank will have sort of remodel a second time because the plants will change everything and unfortunately you will always have a large amount of algae there, having the plants from the beginning will reduce or even resolve that problem, anyway they will create the right conditions of water quality and establish themselves with their bacteria and microorganisms and therefore stop the coming of the algae. For the algae is a too high amount of nutrients in the water such as phosphates and others the main problem, so dont forget to have this problem controled. So you are right in point 2 of your letter, I would say.

Furthermore I would recommend you not to use some of the silica or phosphate removers at all, they will only make all this more complicated (I want to give you the advise to do things in a natural way, that works always better).

For your tank and the animals you want to keep it is as you already know soft water with a slight sour PH better, it will also help against the diatoms, I would recommend you a strong lamp for the plants and to have always some floating plants to reduce the intensity of light (I mean floating but under the surface of water, you will have to remove them periodically because they will grow very well), some kind of Ceratophyllum, or Limnophila or Ceratopteris, I find some Riccia fluitans looks very fine too, the floating plants contribute a lot to the wellfare of your fish and other animals.

I would like to suggest you to to try keeping some little Neocaridina shrimps, they are good algae eaters, its a pity you don't like snails but the Melanoides are very usefull snails that keep the soil healthy by burying themselves in and loosing and oxigenating it, they will also feed any organic rubish in the tank and keep it clean.

Don't forget to wash the sand or gravel very well before starting the tank, water must come clear after the final washing, I always buy the sand in a pet shop and not elsewhere, it's maybe safer and don't cost the whole world, with 4€ I can buy 5 kg here.

Well if I might help you in whatever question you have I will very pleased, have a nice day.

Wow this is great, detailed advice! ¡Gracias!

I will follow your advice in full, it makes a lot of sense. I do have a good light (53 PAR at 16" and made for planted aquariums) so I should be able to grow a wide range of plants. When this tank was first set up it was very lightly planted. I did add some plants as I went but they weren't there from the start. At first I had algae but no growth on the plants, until I experimented when EI dosing. Then the algae went away and I started having good growth. So this time around I want a more densely planted tank, and it's good to know I can start that way from the beginning, and it will help will the other problems too. I will definitely take a look at the plants you mentioned. Thank you!

I assume that the ammonia needed for cycling will not hurt the plants?

I will look into the melanoides but don't make any promises LOL. Definitely will look at the neocardinia. I have never kept shrimp, so it would be cool to have them.

Regarding the sand, I use pool filter sand. It's made to be used as filter media in pools, so it comes pre-washed. It's also a bit coarser than the play sand many people use, which I like because it's a bit easier to vacuum without sucking it into the hose.

 

[MonsieurLaGrenuoille]

I myself have said: and unfortunately you will always have a large amount of algae there

I meant "unfortunately you will ALREADY have a...., when puting the plants in the thank, you know my english, and it's logical that the plants will have to fight with the algae that were first there.

 

[wgoldfarb]

The silicon holds where the glasses meet each other, I don't think it will leak at all, you should keep it as a quarentene or emergency tank in any case.

Good to know! Gives me more confidence to try redoing the silicone, since the risk of a leak if I do a bad job is much lower. I do want to redo the silicone to get rid of that algae -- It looks terrible now.

I already have a smaller 10 gallon (about 38 litres) I use as a quarantine tank. So if I set up the tank again I will have contracted that dangerous disease, "MTS" . Besides it would be easy to convince the wife... "But we already have the tank, why let it go to waste?"

 

[MonsieurLaGrenuoille]

The ammonia or the ammoniac is the main nutrient for plants, if they "food" nitrates they have first to convert the nitrates in ammonia, which costs them extra energy, so don't be afraid because of this. I hope in the sand for swimming pools there is no weird or non suitable material that could cause harm to the aquarium (I'm not sure). To have nutrients for the bacteria by cycling you can put a small piece of fish or a shrimp to decompose and this will be OK.

 

[wgoldfarb]

The ammonia or the ammoniac is the main nutrient for plants, if they "food" nitrates they have first to convert the nitrates in ammonia, which costs them extra energy, so don't be afraid because of this. I hope in the sand for swimming pools there is no weird or non suitable material that could cause harm to the aquarium (I'm not sure). To have nutrients for the bacteria by cycling you can put a small piece of fish or a shrimp to decompose and this will be OK.

Good to know about ammonia. I was aware they consume nitrates, but wasn't sure about ammonia. I'm just starting to learn about plants! Last time it was trial and error, and it was mostly errors

I don't like using decomposing fish/shrimp to cycle. I feel you have less control that way! In addition to my own tank I've cycled a few tanks at my kids school, so I'm quite comfortable with the cycling process.

Pool filter sand is just plain sand. No additives, it is used as mechanical media in some types of pool filters. It is coarser than play sand to allow good water flow through it (which I guess also helps to avoid pockets of trapped water in the substrate) and comes pre-washed so you can put it in your pool filter without affecting the pool. Here you can find it for about $15 for a bag of 50 lbs (about 23kg). It's natural colored (at least the one I can find here is).

 

[FishHobby99]

Be careful of MTS! Happened to me, I’m currently healed.

 

[wgoldfarb]

Be careful of MTS! Happened to me, I’m currently healed.

Healed I didn't think that was possible! I thought MTS was a lifelong affliction

 

[FishHobby99]

It took 30 days in a psychiatric hospital and 90 days of intensive out patient therapy. I wasn’t the only fish addict there.

 

[MonsieurLaGrenuoille]

Please wgoldfarb can you explain me what "El dosing" means?

Happy to hear you are experimented in cycling tanks, that's a useful thing.

I would like to give you one more suggestion as for the filter, well you have a canister filter and if you are going to keep shrimps, their little babies will be sucked in into the filter and that's not good, I have built in my external fiters a sponge pre-filter so that no little animals or even plancton could be sucked in and destroyed, in addition it's easier to clean the sponge every couple of weeks or so and the external filter can be used for more biological filtration (all of my filters are secured this way to avoid destroying fry and the little fauna). For the shrimps is good to create refuges in the tank where they can fly back out of reach of fish.

 

[wgoldfarb]

Please wgoldfarb can you explain me what "El dosing" means?

EI stands for "Estimative Index". It's a method developed by a guy called Tom Barr to figure out how many nutrients to provide your tank to ensure good plant growth and avoid algae. It requires no measuring of anything (e.g. no measuring of potassium levels, for instance). The idea is that you provide enough micro and macro nutrients so that the only factor limiting growth is the amount of light you have. Essentially, you follow a weekly "recipe" according to your tank size that tells you which nutrients to add when. It's designed for well planted tanks with CO2, but there are many modified recipes out there for less planted tanks, or for tanks who use liquid CO2 supplements such as Flourish Excel. It worked beautifully for me.

You can find a more detailed description on this thread. That thread also contains links to more information (including the original articles by Tom Barr)

 

[FishHobby99]

Oh, I thought it meant The Dosing, as in El Camino Real, famous thorofare in California.

dang! You two sound so smart! Are you a pair of biochemists?