My 75g (some ?'s)

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Tigerbarb12

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Feb 25, 2015
Messages
253
Location
Milford, OH
Ok, so i finally set my 75g up. Ill jump right into the technical/chemical aspect of it all.

Ammonia = 0.0
Nitrite = 0.0
Nitrate > 40
pH = 7.5

10lb co2 tank. Stainless steel disc diffuser. Pretty standard regulator and bubble counter. Tiny leak at bubble counter, any suggestions on how to eliminate will be appreciated. Its at about 3bps.

2 emperor 400 filters.
2 48" finex planted + lights
Black sand for substrate.
Green leaf aquariums ferts. Powder that you dissolve in water. Kno3, mgso4, k2so4 and kh2po4 for macros and plantex csm+b for micros.
Also seachem root tabs.

Piece of driftwood i found by the river that instantly and permanently caught my attention. Has white fuzz on it, doubt its worthy of worry.

Plants so far
Left to Right, Back to Front

Amazon Sword
Anubius Nana
Temple Compacta
Gold Ribbon
Bacopa Caroliniana

Only one of each. I plan on heavily planting. May end up with 20 or more.

Last night i added 4 tiger barbs and today after work, one was dead and the other 3 seem unhealthy and "dying"... they have white stuff on their fins.

1. Could my wood be causing this?
2. Even after a 25% wc yesterday and 50% wc today, my nitrates are still over 40, so what am i to do?
3. After the 50% wc, which didnt help nitrates at all, i dosed the tank with melafix. Is this ok?
4. My plants dont seem to be ok, however i bought the first one tues or wed.. cant remember, long work week... and none were completely healthy... these are petsmart plants... only lfs within like 50 miles.. are they going to be ok? How come they arent eating up that nitrate?
Pics should be attached, not sure if they are.

Lastly, nitrate from tap is <5
 
The white fuzz will go away, every piece of wood I've added grows it at first. Sometimes the fish or shrimp pick at, sometimes they don't!
 
Pics. Note that in the tank photo, the plant on the far left is fake. I dont think the gold ribbon is in this pic
 

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Ok, no help... so glad i have an account on this forum. Im assuming that my high nitrates, possibly >80, killed these fish. I have to deal with that.
 
You may want to post on the unhealthy fish forum. Specifically just the question on the fish.
 
I'm sure the Melafix is fine to add to your tank, as it's a natural (albeit not always an effective) remedy, but Pimafix may be a better choice, as it's for fungals. Nitrates at 80 ppm shouldn't be immediately fatal to your fish, but prolonged exposure would be detrimental at the least.
I can't answer your questions about live plants as I don't have many, but I do have a stupid question: did you thoroughly disinfect the driftwood with boiling water and clean debris from it before adding it to your tank? Is it possible that some hidden nasty from the wood infected your tank? I would continue with the water changes every other day until you get your nitrates under control, and also continue with the Pimafix. If you have carbon in your filter media, take it out, as carbon removes any medication you put into the tank. An established tank shouldn't need carbon anyway, unless you're removing something from the water. Sorry, not very good advice. Hopefully, someone will have better for you.
 
The elevated nitrates are from the KNO3 in the PPS-Pro. When I first started using it I saw the same thing even while heavily planted and with a low bioload. I ordered a separate dosing bottle from GLA (though any container that can hold ~3/4 quarts should work) and mixed the macro ferts (minus the KNO3) in the macro bottle and the KNO3 in the new bottle. I dose the modified macros and micros as usual and only dose the nitrates maybe once a week (depending on the nitrate level). This has worked for me for the last 3 years. I have not added any fish to my current setup (4+ weeks old) so I am dosing the KNO3 daily and the nitrates are around 5 ppm. This may change once I add the fish.
It would not hurt to remove the drift wood and boil it a few times. The fungus that is often seen with new DW may be caused by substances leaching from it.
As for the fish, how were they acclimated? Perhaps there was stress introduced during this time. I am a believer in lengthy drip acclimation.
Your plants are new. Give them some time. I've ordered mine from other AA members and from online vendors. Setup wise, everything seems to be in check.
 
I hadnt even thought of the kno3... so i need to boil the wood and possibly dump out my macro formula and redo without kno3...
 
I hadnt even thought of the kno3... so i need to boil the wood and possibly dump out my macro formula and redo without kno3...



Depends. The DW should be fine to be honest. The spots on the fish is most likely due to the stress on high nitrates/shock of a new tank.

Do you 50% weekly water change? Kno3 can build up pretty quick if your not religious with the weekly change. As fresh said kno3 needs to be adjusted to suit your fish load etc.
test before dosing and after lights out so you know how much your plants are using per day.
 
They arent very reliable in that sense... also just watched my co2 kick on and my tank went from almost full yesterday, 900psi or so, down to 0... co2 is still going with the needle bottomed out... i did fix my tiny leak 20 min ago
 
100% agree. I hate those colour charts!


I'll have to second that. 40? 160?

Also, for better control of lighting, you may want to consider putting the fixtures on separate timers. That way you could have one come on and a few hours later have the other come on; this allows you to dictate the amount of maximum light is on the tank. I had to do that with my two fixture setup to resolve an algae issue.
 
Looks great. Other nice thing is looks like you can raise or lower your lights easily. Thats a nice benefit.
 
Thank you, and yes. I hung the lights so that i could adjust them if need be. Plus they look neat hanging from the little chains.
 
Thank you, and yes. I hung the lights so that i could adjust them if need be. Plus they look neat hanging from the little chains.



Just noticed something that might help you with your tank.
The diffuser needs to be placed a lot Lower if possible. You want those bubbles to have as much contact with the water as possible.
You might find you get better co2 input if you put the diffuser under one of the inlets of your hobs. If it makes the propeller shutter or burp then just put it down to substrate level where it currently is.
 
I would love to, but i had to cut into the black frame to get it to hang at all... and is it ok to have the co2 line in the water? I doubt it would hurt anything, just wondering
 
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