130 gallon dirted tank

[Wepwawet]

Quick update..... dealing with a nitrite spike can you say pwc pwc pwc pwc pwc almost over or so I hope lol I expected one but not one that was off the readings chart

The good news? Plants are doing awesome only one in the back right corner that's iffy but I see a new leaf so after it drops it current leaves hoping for full recovery.

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Oh my! Its looking amazing! are you trying to carpet that HC?

 

[Wepwawet]

HC?

I have grass and baby dwarf tears to carpet. Grass was a save from my other tank it just wouldn't grow. Think it may need high light

 

[DanTheGuppyMan]

HC is dwarf baby tears (hemianthus callitrichoides) yours looks green! Unlike my sad depiction of it...lol

 

[Wepwawet]

They were just planted on Thursday so have to see if they decide to stick around

 

[Wepwawet]

So I managed to wipe out my whole fish stock :'(

10 got sucked in while doing a wc after work on sat. Found them "chillin" outside Sunday when I noticed something wrong.

Changed co2 yesterday but dc never got past light green. Buddy calls to tell me I have dead fish when asked to check the dc pee yellow so in 2 days I've wiped out ~100 bucks in fish. Not happy at all.

Now to figure out what went very very wrong. The setback sucks for me but fatal for my fish

 

[Rivercats]

That sucks about the fish but the tank is going to look really good when it matures and fills in.

 

[Wepwawet]

True but I feel bad for my fishes.

Now if I could get off work so I can clean up the bodies

 

[Wepwawet]

I think my two L052 plecos might pull thru if they are still alive when I get home they should be in the clear. And lots of TLC incoming their way

 

[Wepwawet]

Both Pecos are alive and well

This is the 29 gallon everyone is calling home as I ammonia bomb the big tank to get bacteria up.

 

[Wepwawet]

Update on main tank!

I think I figured out a cpl of the problems.

1. not enough media in canister(only used 1 box each of prefilter/biomax that came with filter )

2. under fertilizing. Bottoming out my nitrates plants were just sucking them up.

Now the first one I hoped would be enough till my order came in to fill it. And it might have been had I not had so many plants.

The second one I thought ferting with flourish would comp for but after testing with no fish the tank zeroed out across the board. Even with double dosing!

As of today I'm EI dosing dry ferts to get all my plants reserves back and to help with any thing they have been lacking.

Why EI over PPS? Two reasons 1 I want bombard the plants to get them back to square one. 2 I want to see if I can tell a difference when I control their intake per day/ and see how much controlling phosphate matters in my tank. 3 I may or may not have a bet on the side

As you can see my algae has shown up later then expected. It should go away in the next cpl of weeks as the plants out competes it for nutrients in the water column. And my snails are extremely happy lol.

I'm also fishless cycling ~4ppm ammonia should allow a full stock when complete.

If my logic is off or plain out wrong please speak up. It takes a lot to offend me. I may retort not to say your wrong but to better understand.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Have you ever considered a pH controller for your co2 system? It turns off the co2 once it reaches a set point and saves fish from a mishap like the one you experienced. I attribute mine to keeping my co2 level right where I want it without ever having a fish loss due to a co2 dump. It certainly ain't necessary but it becomes easier to justify after an expensive fish loss. >_<

 

[Wepwawet]

I only lost 2 Harlequin rosboras to it in the end. The mistake was me bumping it up to much. But yes I have given it some thought.

I'm still amazed at how far ph will swing with co2

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Oh, two small fish isn't a bad loss at all. Phew! That's certainly good to hear. I doubt you need a controller for such a big tank. Nice pictures by the way.

If it were me, I'd make an open space near the middle for either a different type of low growth plant or just to break up the line of plants running from left to right.

 

[Rivercats]

Okay maybe I'm reading this wrong but by using El your not controlling the plants intake daily. El is all about excessive nutrients so plants have all the nutrients they might need/want available. With PPS-Pro which is what I use I control my dosing by keeping levels at a very specific amount and not having excess. I run very tightly controlled macro nutrients of nitrates and phosphates. My tank eats phosphates so I have to dose them at least double if not more daily to keep the proper amount available for the plants. I only add nitrates a couple times a week as I have plants that require high amounts of phosphates and low amounts of nitrates. I am controlling the amount of those specific nutrients available to them for daily intake. If I was just adding an excess of each macro then I wouldn't be controlling how much they are using. You really don't need to bombard the plants with excess nutrients for the plants to recover IMO.

 

[Wepwawet]

I may have worded it wrong. I'm going to do both. I want to see what the tank does with EI then do pps I want to see how my tank likes/dislikes both systems.

My buddy thinks EI is great but my question is EI just throwing your ferts away? As you are doing pwc to keep from building an extreme amount of extra ferts.

I think pps IF you have the formula for your tank right your giving them all they need and saving in the long run.

Now with that said I understand ferts are cheap. I'm just learning as I go and want to see the merit of the two systems.


I know this will take some time to do but should be a fun ride

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Well, EI often calls for larger water changes than PPS. On a smaller tank I don't see that as being an issue but on a really large tank it may be prohibitive. I haven't used EI personally, so it may not be all that different. The literature I've seen did point that out as an additional consideration when deciding between the two systems. Somebody more familiar with using EI for a large tank would know more.

 

[Wepwawet]

I do about an 60% pwc every week on both tanks. As weird as it sounds tank maintenance is relaxing to me lol

 

[Rivercats]

I like working in my tanks also especially the 220g. It is relaxing and takes your mind off things.

 

[Wepwawet]

Have you done EI rivercats? If so and even if not what are your thoughts