jdsunflower
Aquarium Advice Activist
setup debugging...
first some background:
40b tank, cycled with lots of plants over several weeks. Lots of natural bogwood. Eheim canister with mostly mechanical filtration, and some minimal smaller filtration pads. (Had to buy a new one, old one was indeed broken.)
Current status: 2 Eclipse Natural Daylight strips (came with tank, wattage unclear to me I'm embarassed to say...). Plants flourishing, though! I love the Black Water stuff, and use it regularly as a tonic...
ammonia, nitrites, nitrates quite undetectable, 5 corys, 5 glowlights, 1 golden apple snail (that relishes the small pieces of calcium I put in)...and lots of small smails I see as part of the system (so don't mind much). Substrate is black Flourite. temp about 78F, plants are cabomba, Amazon swords, water lettuce, elodia (sp?) (c), hornwort...Amazons struggling for now probably because my water is still too soft and I will address this asap. pH is about 7.4, carbonate hardness 3, general hardness 4.
My water is naturally extremely soft with pH around 9.5 (!) which I try to adjust with a bare minimum of adjuster to 7 equivalent to perhaps 2 tsp per 40g tank, and the rest with white vinegar. Adjusting hardness should help I hope...
Finally picked up my co2 tank. 5 g refillable. Got a co2 kit, plus selenoid and timer...AND read everything I could find about how to set this all up... I am sooo not mechanically minded, and of course I am consequently still lost about the integration of the selenoid and timer to the set-up. There seems to be an assumption that this part is hardly worth mentioning, so I am a bit bemused...
Tried it last night, no apparent timing function to co2 happening...... (adjusted for 12 hrs injection).
The selenoid fitting to regulator, selenoid plug, and timer are what is confusing me.
Right now, I have the following order:
tank (pressure 900), tightly fitted regulator (low to 15), brief piece of tubing, selenoid (IN to regulator side and plugged into timer and outlet), tubing to needle valve, needle valve, tubing to bubble counter, bubble counter (about 1 bubble per 5 seconds), tubing to reactor (that is also plugged into wall).
What I'm finding: 1: reactor makes a racket. Is this normal? No change over 18 hours or so. Does it matter if I tilt it sideways as long as the cyclone action is protected? It makes less of a racket that way...
2: reactor works all the time as long as it's plugged into wall of course. If I turn off the injection at the needle valve or (once I correct issue) selenoid, do I just let it run uselessly (moving water around I guess), or should I turn it off nightly to give the fish a break from the noise? Is this actually where a timer would do more good?
3: Timer didn't change anything to the bubble action in bubble counter, is that what ought to change with timer? Timer didn't seem to do anything at all...
Not sure if this is selenoid problem (tubing vs direct connection to regulator?, timer not working, etc).
If at all possible I'd like to avoid getting a pH monitor hookup as well. A little late to try to limit costs, but my tank is small and I don't anticipate a huge co2 injection, so don't figure the pH will be affected much by the limited co2...)
All in all, though, I think it's coming along. The fish seem very happy and secure...My glowlights were initially stressed, and 2 had white smudges on their lips, but they seem to be healing naturally (tough catching them in the big tanks, I was only able to catch the healthy ones, so they are in the QT tank with plants as well, until I'm sure the others are over it...water parameters same.) The corys are a posse already!
JD
first some background:
40b tank, cycled with lots of plants over several weeks. Lots of natural bogwood. Eheim canister with mostly mechanical filtration, and some minimal smaller filtration pads. (Had to buy a new one, old one was indeed broken.)
Current status: 2 Eclipse Natural Daylight strips (came with tank, wattage unclear to me I'm embarassed to say...). Plants flourishing, though! I love the Black Water stuff, and use it regularly as a tonic...
ammonia, nitrites, nitrates quite undetectable, 5 corys, 5 glowlights, 1 golden apple snail (that relishes the small pieces of calcium I put in)...and lots of small smails I see as part of the system (so don't mind much). Substrate is black Flourite. temp about 78F, plants are cabomba, Amazon swords, water lettuce, elodia (sp?) (c), hornwort...Amazons struggling for now probably because my water is still too soft and I will address this asap. pH is about 7.4, carbonate hardness 3, general hardness 4.
My water is naturally extremely soft with pH around 9.5 (!) which I try to adjust with a bare minimum of adjuster to 7 equivalent to perhaps 2 tsp per 40g tank, and the rest with white vinegar. Adjusting hardness should help I hope...
Finally picked up my co2 tank. 5 g refillable. Got a co2 kit, plus selenoid and timer...AND read everything I could find about how to set this all up... I am sooo not mechanically minded, and of course I am consequently still lost about the integration of the selenoid and timer to the set-up. There seems to be an assumption that this part is hardly worth mentioning, so I am a bit bemused...
Tried it last night, no apparent timing function to co2 happening...... (adjusted for 12 hrs injection).
The selenoid fitting to regulator, selenoid plug, and timer are what is confusing me.
Right now, I have the following order:
tank (pressure 900), tightly fitted regulator (low to 15), brief piece of tubing, selenoid (IN to regulator side and plugged into timer and outlet), tubing to needle valve, needle valve, tubing to bubble counter, bubble counter (about 1 bubble per 5 seconds), tubing to reactor (that is also plugged into wall).
What I'm finding: 1: reactor makes a racket. Is this normal? No change over 18 hours or so. Does it matter if I tilt it sideways as long as the cyclone action is protected? It makes less of a racket that way...
2: reactor works all the time as long as it's plugged into wall of course. If I turn off the injection at the needle valve or (once I correct issue) selenoid, do I just let it run uselessly (moving water around I guess), or should I turn it off nightly to give the fish a break from the noise? Is this actually where a timer would do more good?
3: Timer didn't change anything to the bubble action in bubble counter, is that what ought to change with timer? Timer didn't seem to do anything at all...
Not sure if this is selenoid problem (tubing vs direct connection to regulator?, timer not working, etc).
If at all possible I'd like to avoid getting a pH monitor hookup as well. A little late to try to limit costs, but my tank is small and I don't anticipate a huge co2 injection, so don't figure the pH will be affected much by the limited co2...)
All in all, though, I think it's coming along. The fish seem very happy and secure...My glowlights were initially stressed, and 2 had white smudges on their lips, but they seem to be healing naturally (tough catching them in the big tanks, I was only able to catch the healthy ones, so they are in the QT tank with plants as well, until I'm sure the others are over it...water parameters same.) The corys are a posse already!
JD