Getting back into the Hobby. Questions I forgot the answers to.

[KJS29]

Hey guys.
I've been browsing around the forum for about a week now. To introduce myself quickly, I've been in the hobby for about 2 years. I reside in the GTA, Ontario, Canada, and I am a male, 18 years of age. I currently own two freshwater tanks. One 5Gallon, and One 29Gallon.

I had my 29Gallon down for a while, and I just went to the LFS to pick up some stuff.

I have an overhead Coralife Dual 21" compact flourescent box, containing One 55Watt Colormax 6700K, and One 55Watt Colormax 50/50 Actinic 03 Blue/10,000K.

I also grabbed an airpump with some airline tubing and airstones. I have flourite red substrate (its old, so the nutrients are most likely zapped out of it by now). I also picked up a brand new Wisteria, Rotala Wallichii and Rotala Macrandra, However, I have managed to save some Rotundifolia from my 5Gallon and am now growing it in my 29G. So, I actually have 3 differents strands of Rotala in my 29G. I hope they all work out and grow nicely. Would look beautiful with the red/green/pink. Especially the thickness difference in the leaves between the Wallichii and Rotundifolia!!

QUESTIONS: I once knew the answer to these, but I sort of dropped out of the hobby for a few months, due to schooling, lack of cash, lack of time, etc.

1. I am dosing with the Seachem line for plants (Excel, Flourish, Flourish trace). I do not have CO2 injection (YET). I also have a HOB Filter with Activated Carbon.

Will the carbon zap the nutrients from the Excel, Flourish, and Flourish Trace? Should I take the carbon out?

2. I have an airline connected to an airstone that is creating bubbles from underneath the substrate. Oxygen does NOT displace CO2, RIGHT? This means that I can have both CO2 injection and atmospheric injection and they will NOT cancel each other out. Correct?

Thanks guys!
Right now I'm just trying to re-plant my 29Gallon before I get any fish for it. I want to finish the aquascaping before I start to add inhabitants.
Hopefully 110Watts over 29Gallons isnt too much. I've got the lights on for only 8 hours/day right now, and so far i have not seen any signs of algae.

 

[rich311k]

1. It gets debated but I do not think so. If it did everyone would use carbon to remove nitrates.

2. Yes O2 and CO2 are independent of each other. Once you start adding CO2 you will want to turn off the bubbler because the surface agitation will gas off the CO2.

 

[Purrbox]

Flourish Trace really isn't that great of a Trace supplement, since you have Flourish "Comprehensive" just use that one for your Trace dosing.

Carbon is generally for removing DOCs and medications. Good water changes and aquarium care will take care of the DOCs, so really the only reason to use it is after treating your aquarium with medication. As such I see no reason to use it on a daily basis, since it's costing you money for something you really don't need.

As Rich mentioned, CO2 and O2 are independant of eachother. Agitating the water's surface will help both to return to equilibrium saturation levels. Its the bubbles breaking at the water's surface causing ripples that adds O2 to the water, not the bubbles themselves. If your not injecting CO2 (using Flourish Excel, or no carbon supplementation) then aggitating the water's surface with a bubbler actually raises the CO2 levels. However once you start injecting CO2 the bubbler will be gassing off the excess CO2 that you are trying to inject. This is why you would want to remove the bubbler if you start injecting CO2.

 

[KJS29]

So, since Flourish Excel is a liquid based carbon, then surface agitation (bubbles breaking at the surface) does not "take away" from adding Flourish Excel?

Because, Flourish Excel is pure liquid Carbon only, right? And thus, it will not gas off the surface because of agitation?

Thank you for both for the replies!

 

[Purrbox]

Correct. Surface aggitation will gas off CO2. Since Flourish Excel provides carbon in a liquid form it won't gas off.

 

[KJS29]

Correct. Surface aggitation will gas off CO2. Since Flourish Excel provides carbon in a liquid form it won't gas off.

Awesome.
Thanks a million!

 

[KJS29]

Starting to look into some Co2 injection. I'm going to be taking another trip to another LFS on Monday to get more plants to fill up my 29G before adding inhabitants.

So far, the plants are thriving quite well with the lighting. The plants are bright in colour, the red plants are staying red, and you can see growth, but the growth is somewhat slow. I now have the lights on for 12 hours a day, and there is no algae. Nitrates are inbetween 5 - 10ppm.

Here is the Co2 system I was looking at. I do not want natural co2 (yeast, sugar) because I have tried that before and it did not work out for me. This time, I want to try the whole sha-bang!

RedSeaFish

Anyone have/tried this product?
This is my first Co2 "kit" purchase. I'm a little skeptical because i purchased the Red Sea "Natural" Co2 kit before, and it did not work out well for me at all, due to the fact that my tank is only 18" high, and the bubbles that were being shot out were not micro, and therefore were not dissolving before bursting at the surface.

The kit is $300, so i want to make sure i am making the right choice!

Thank you guys!

 

[Purrbox]

I have yet to hear any reviews of the Red Sea Regulator one way or the other. I'd recommend going with either Rex Grigg's custom built regulator (love mine) or a Milwaukee regulator (very popular, has most options at a reasonable price). I think that you'll be much happier with the results. You could even custom build your own if you're handy enough.

 

[KJS29]

Also, I think I may have screwed up...

I purchased a 55 watt 50/50 bulb, half 10,000k and half actinic 03.

Question:

How are the watts split up amongst the 10,000k and the actinic?

Here is my concern:

I have a 29 gallon, therefore, 3WPG would mean that i need 87Watts of light.

If most plants cannot use the actinic light, then does that mean i'm not actually getting 55 watts out of my 50/50 bulb, and therefore my plants are suffering? Would that mean that my plants are only recognizing 27.5 Watts of that 55 watt bulb?

I'm worried that maybe I should have purchased the 65Watt 6700k, and the 65Watt 50/50.

Or... maybe I shouldnt have Actinic at all?

Help? Thanks guys... The plants just seem that they are growing too slow, even without co2 injection. They are basically "maintaining" their structure, and this is with 12 hours of light.

 

[KJS29]

Currently have:
Coralife 55 Watt 6,700K 21" Compact Flourescent
Coralife 55 Watt 50/50 (10k, actinic) 21" Compact Flourescent.

Maybe what I should do is replace the 50/50, with a Coralife 65 Watt 10,000K 21" Compact flourescent.

That would give me 120Watts/29gallons. Which is 4.13WPG.

That way, I would be getting my 6,700K yellow daytime light, and my 10,000K blue daytime lighting?

 

[Purrbox]

Some feel that actinics have no benefit to plants, but also are not harmful. Others feel that the plants can make some limited use of the actinic light. And a few others feel that actinic can be used in full by plants. Even if you discount the Actinic from your calculations, you have about 82.5 watts over the aquarium which is about 2.85 WPG. This is a fair amount of light, and I'd probably wait to see how the plants are doing. If some of the more demanding plants start to show signs that they aren't getting enough light, then you may want to swap out the bulb.

 

[KJS29]

I noticed that in the past few days, the plants have not been showing any growth. I reduced the light by only one hour, so the plants are still getting 11 hours of light.

I am still dosing my ferts regularly. Algae is slowly starting to form (Hair algae) on certain parts of the substrate, which i will remove.

But... Since i dont have fish, I unplugged the heater. The tank has been sitting at about 70F for the past at least 4 days.

I just turned the heater back on because its the only reason i can think of that would halt the growth of the plants. However, I'm not sure if temperature even has any effect on plant growth at all.

Does anyone know if temperature has any effect on the growth of plants?

 

[Purrbox]

Plants have preferred temperatures just like fish do. Lowering the temperature could have easily slowed growth.

 

[KJS29]

Plants have preferred temperatures just like fish do. Lowering the temperature could have easily slowed growth.

Thanks. =)

Also.. Since I am starting to notice hair algae, I have just started (Today) to overdose with Excel and manually remove as much of it as i can.

To my knowledge, there are no real cons to overdosing with excel, considering i have no fish, correct?

 

[Purrbox]

The only way overdosing Excel would be an issue for what I've seen is if you had Vals or Anacharis in the aquarium.