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I don’t use CO2 either. I could never afford the dang setup (Windstones are more important…LOL). I just thought since you had Cabomba, you had CO2. I always just thought they needed it.
I use SeaChem’s Excel for carbon. Well, I used to anyway. I lost power for 7 days during Gustav, and some of my plants just couldn’t make it without light for that long. I lost all my background plants. 😥 The crypts, however, survived and are spreading like weeds… and I don’t give them anything anymore. Easy maintenance! 8)
But it’s just not as pretty without all the different textures. I really need to get things back the way they were. The fish really don’t seem to care though.
Jen, some plants are just as picky about their water as fish. I, too, recommend a test kit. For example, I am one of those people who have really weird water. The ph is HIGH; it comes out of the tap at around 9. BUT my general hardness is ZERO. I bought three different test kits because it I thought they were all defective! 😆 When I tested my alkalinity, it was fine. I was getting so confused… it took me forever to figure out. My alkalinity was fine and the hardness was low because the carbonates that were in my water wasn’t calcium carbonate, it’s something else. Everything began to make sense. I added plants and real wood to drop the pH (carbonic acid), and I add calcium for the plants. And since I didn’t want to work with buffers and additives either, I gave up on my hard-water loving African cichlids. I have Angels now. 😀
Here’s a link that has some common deficinecies… I have one with toxicity as well, but I can find it at the moment. 😳
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htmAwesome post! I have both of the Kasselman books on planted aquariums and even they don’t have such an easy guide. Nifty link! Now I wanna go further scrutinize all my plants. I have crypts too, that grow like weeds. You can see them in the tank between the two dark red Barclaya plants. I started out with one tiny shoot that my friend gave me! Now they’re turning into a nice little Dutch-style “street” 😀 I even took two out to give to a friend, they grow so fast.
I’ll let you know how the Cabomba holds up; I just put it in last week. I knew you needed CO2 to get good results with them but wasn’t sure it was totally necessary. Either way, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the aquatic store get a shipment of it in, so I decided to give them a try. They were too pretty not to pass up. 😳
At least one can do that with plants! I learned the hard way when I was a fish n00b that there are many important factors besides “prettyness!!!1!!” that you need to take into consideration when buying fish…
chrisherself wrote:That’s too bad Jennifer! I love keeping Apistos. They’re a pretty popular fish among fishkeepers since they’re pretty easy to keep and breed. You might be able to connect with a private breeder in your area through CL or asking around in the fish store. As far as the water, I’d get a test kit and figure out your new water profile. Most plants (and ALL the prettiest fish, it seems…) like real soft, mildly acidic water which is the exact opposite of what my tap is. My PH is about 7.8 and the general hardness is something like 15-18, pretty bad for the stuff I want to keep. Rather than mess with a bunch of buffers and chemicals, I just purchase reverse osmosis deionized water from the aquatic store. After messing around with my water test kit and a bunch of ratios I figured out I need a 1:9 mix of my tap to RO-DI water to get the ideal profile. It’s a bit of a pain lugging several 5-gallon jugs around all the time, but it’s worth it to keep the fish I love!
I’m a bit in the middle of nowhere.. no local fish shops, sadly!
I do CO2. I used to do Flourish Excel but I found that compared what I spent on Excel in a year I could run CO2 on nearly nothing, money wise! A tank lasts me 6-8 months and it only costs $6.00 to get a refill. $6.00 for 6+ months vs. $7.99/bottle that miiight last me a month? No competition XD
Ah yes, I know all about testing… ran the aquatic sections of pet shops for years, hehehe. All my tests come out pretty good, my pH and GH are about the same as yours, and actually are the same exact as they were at my last location! There must be something in the water that is giving me problems though and I can’t afford to send a sample off for a full analysis. The frustrating part is that with well water around here, the composition of the water can change from week to week, or even day to day.
My yellow shrimps for example.. gosh. I am so bummed. I got them as juvelines and they have been doing great for 5 months! The females started to berry and I was ready for tiny shrimps, and then everyone stated turning opaque… which for freshwater shrimp is a terrible sign. They all died and I am clueless. I didn’t change anything.. truly it had been 3 weeks since the last water change even.
I am guessing I have traces of something in my water. What I don’t know– not copper, because my bamboo shrimp and snails are going strong.
The yellow shrimps combined with my plant problems makes me think that something is up.
This is easily the most confusing problem I’ve had!Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.combayoudragon wrote:Jen, some plants are just as picky about their water as fish. I, too, recommend a test kit. For example, I am one of those people who have really weird water. The ph is HIGH; it comes out of the tap at around 9. BUT my general hardness is ZERO. I bought three different test kits because it I thought they were all defective! 😆 When I tested my alkalinity, it was fine. I was getting so confused… it took me forever to figure out. My alkalinity was fine and the hardness was low because the carbonates that were in my water wasn’t calcium carbonate, it’s something else. Everything began to make sense. I added plants and real wood to drop the pH (carbonic acid), and I add calcium for the plants. And since I didn’t want to work with buffers and additives either, I gave up on my hard-water loving African cichlids. I have Angels now. 😀
Here’s a link that has some common deficinecies… I have one with toxicity as well, but I can find it at the moment. 😳
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nutrient.htmYes, I am a testing master. Heh! I have probably tested water tens of thousands of times for clients. I used to work with Aquarium Design Group in Houston.
I had the problem with high pH and NO GH or KH when I was in Georgia! Baking soda dissolved in tank water fixed me right up. It’s easy, cheap, and it won’t make your pH bounce everywhere like the crap they sell at pet shops!
Thanks for the link! Sadly I don’t think my plants have a deficiency. They only started ‘burning’ when I started using well water at my new home. I think that there is too MUCH of something in my water, but sadly I have no real way to find out what.
Interestingly, my house plants and root cuttings are SO happy with my water that they are growing now like gangbusters. My mom brings me cuttings to root for her and I can take them back with roots in two days. So something is up! This is why I suspect we may have too much iron…
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My art: featherdust.comJen is losing plants, and for some reason, I’m now loosing fish. Regualr maintenance went really wrong today. I don’t know what happened. I simply cleaned the tank, and now all my fish are in respiratory distress. I don’t know what went wrong. I checked the temp. I even tested the pH, etc. As I was watching wondering what was wrong, one of my turquoise rainbowfish went from distress to failure. It’s never a good sign when fish start twitching and swimming in a spiral. Eventually, she finally lay still on the bottom of the tank. I was beyond heartbroken. They may be fish, but they are my babies. I buried her in the backyard. When I got back in, one by one, they started dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn’t bare to see the rest of them suffer horribly the same way, so when each one took a turn for the worst, I put them in an ice bath. It got to be too much, scooping them out of the tank and euthanizing them. They were completely helpless, and I couldn’t save them. I finally broke down and cried. 😥 😥
I know they are just fish. Everything eventually passes on…. some die of old age, some just get eaten. But I somehow caused this, and I am not OK with that. I still don’t know what went wrong. The only thing I can think of is that I bathed my dogs the day before. There may have been some flea shampoo residue on the cement and contaminated the wet filter pads and baskets.
My angels seem to be OK, and my last rainbowfish (the dominant male) seems he may pull through. I can’t find the pleco, and if I lose my bichir, I will be absolutely crushed (I raised him from a teeny-tiny little thing).
Tonight was not fun. 😥 I need chocolate… then I’m off to bed. 🙁
Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear about your fish Bayoudragon! How awful to watch them dying and not knowing WHY! I know just how you feel, I don’t care if they are ‘just’ fish. I broke down sobbing when my last betta died. Somehow the cover got knocked off the tank and he jumped out…apparently several hours before I got home from work. I hope your other fish pull through!
Oh Bayou, that’s AWFUL! I’m so sorry! You poor thing. I was completely heartbroken when I lost my first male apisto, Sebastian. I still miss him. I really, really hope your other fish are able to pull through. If you said you put the pads on cement, were you washing them outside with a hose? Could the water supply have been changed somehow since the last time you cleaned the pads? It’s frustrating when your fish suddenly turn, and you can’t attribute it to anything you’ve done different. I hope the chocolate helps out. That’s my stragegy too 😳 Let us know how your lucky ones are doing the next few days, ok?
Here I came on too with happy news–a new cloud of fry appeared in my apisto tank last night. I would send you all some when they were grown out if you want, if I can manage packing them but I must admit I know nothing about shipping live fish…
awww… I love baby fish news. That is wonderful!
I don’t think it’s the water. Our water is aquifer water, no chlorine, it’s fantastic water. The city uses 80 different points of collection and they mix them to keep things stable should one aquifer change suddenly. They have, however, been talking of adding flouride to the water. Don’t get me started on the flouride issue. LOL! I’ll check into it.
My male did pass in the middle of the night. This is what I lost…
http://www.trilbytropicals.com/turquoise_rainbow.jpgAnd thanks, all… it’s nice to know others love their fish, too! 🙂 😆
Our water has always had floride in it, where ever I have lived and we have never lost fish due to it, the town I used to live in did however do something one week and everyone I knew, including the pet store, lost most of their fish, we had skipped that water change that week.
My ex and I had Apistos 12 or so years ago, they were some of my favorite fish that we had bred, we had about the very same brine shrimp set up too. The Bettas were alot of fun as well. Our one friend bred double black angels and we used to help him with those as well, there was also out crazy friend, he had over 120 tanks running at one time. He didnt do it because she wanted to sell them, he had different fish in their own tanks, most with their own filters, everything from a pair of breeding Oscars to rainbow fish.
My favorite freshwater is Kribs though, I lurve them, my last female I had for 6 years and she passed away about 5 months ago 😥 I know exactly what you are talking about Bayou, they may be fish, but they have personality, IMO. I have not had the heart to get a new one though. I have a pair of Convicts now with my lone male Krib, and 2 rescued Parrot Fish, they are fugly, but so different, they keep attempting to breed. All I have room for now is a 33gal.
Here are the Convicts thou, my little female has coloured up quite nicely:
*dont mind the algae, this tank has been running for 6ish years and much of that it has had eggs/babies between the Kribs and the Convicts.
No, it’s not flouride. I read that the state can’t come up with 8.5 million dollars for some type of necessary equipment. Yes, they want to spend 8.5 million dollars so they can dump extra chemicals in one of the country’s best sources of drinking water. Only in Louisiana! I would have picked education or transportation, but I’m not a politician, so I guess my opinion doesn’t count. 😛 😆
I think I’m going to check for chloramines next.
And I love kribs! That is actually what I wanted for my tank. Every week I go to the pet store (I have to get feeder fish and crickets for work), and they had a tank of angels. Well, the last 4 baby angels had been there for weeks! It seemed no one had wanted them, and one day when I walked up to the tank, all four came straight to the front with their little noses against the glass. They suckered me right in. I couldn’t help, they were just too cute! I took all 4 home. 😳
All four have come through, as well as the pleco and bichir. 🙂
Chloramines? What sort of dechlorinator do you usually use?
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My art: featherdust.comAquaSafe, but I use very little because our water doesn’t (well didn’t) have chlorine nor contains a bunch of heavy metals (if it does, it’s never registered). I also use very little because dechlorinators usually add sulphur to the water.
Well, I tested. I’m reading about 1ppm chloramine. This usually means there’s also ammonia present in the water, so I tested for it, too. Sure enough, it’s about 0.5ppm. grrrr… This, coupled with the fact that I also cleaned my baskets really well and did about a 50% change, is probably the culprit. 🙄 I guess no one is ever free from the aquarium learning curve. 😳 AquaSafe says it removes ammonia, so I will up the dosage and do a test on my tap water and see. This is what I get for not testing my tap regularly.
It says: The formula neutralizes chlorine and heavy metals, removes chloramine and toxic ammonia and provides a slime coat to heal and protect fish.
Aquasafe is an okay product.
When using a public water source, I always always add the recommended dosage of dechlorinator because you never do know what is added to the water.
I use Seachem’s Prime myself, best stuff I’ve found! It also takes care of nitrite and nitrates too. And one 100ml bottle is good for something like 1000 gallons so it lasts forever.Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comI have Prime as well Jen, and really like it. Dating someone at the fish store had ever so many unforseen advantages–I learned a lot!!
Not to mention some “free” stuff lol….
Free stuff… LOL! 8)
Well, the other fish are apparently doing really well. My angels are laying eggs…. again.
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