Jchillin
Aquarium Advice Addict
No problem. 
The Dreaded BBA
- Thread starter BrianNY
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
TankGirl
Aquarium Advice Addict
BrianNY said:
If you take your CO2-injected tank water out and let whatever CO2 was in there outgas, and after that you are still measuring more than 2-3ppm (what you would expect in an average tank of water from fishy respiration, etc.) then something is skewing your results, like a buffer. That would mean that you will need to measure your injected CO2 slightly differently, adjusting for the buffer, in order to get accurate readings.
Ahhhhhh. Thank you Liz. Now I fully understand. Water left standing can only hold 2-3ppm of CO2. Therefore if I get a reading above that it means I'm not injecting as much CO2 as I thought. I'm also thinking that since my pH monitor reads lower, it's time to recalibrate.
TankGirl
Aquarium Advice Addict
I need to re-calibrate often myself, mainly because the BBA seems to really enjoy the pH probe, so I have to remove it frequently to keep it clean.
I just talked to the folks at liveaquaria.com about a marine order. While I had them on the phone I asked about the freshwater shrimp. They have no problems shipping the amano (plus they had other varieties). You might want to check them out.
Jchillin
Aquarium Advice Addict
*One *source* down...two to go*
Thanks Hara.
Thanks Hara.
Xzap
Aquarium Advice FINatic
TankGirl said:
Is there a way to calibrate w/o the 7.0 solution other than comparing the numbers to a tube test ? Seems no one around here carries it ?
Someone told me once vinegar had a pH of 7.0 ?
Thx,
Dave
TankGirl
Aquarium Advice Addict
Ideally you ought to calibrate to 4.0 as well, so I'd just go ahead and get some packets of solution, or bottles, but maybe someone else has other tricks up their sleeve.
Vinegar, an acid, has a pH of about 3, whereas milk is more like 7, though since these could have variations depending on age, etc. I would not trust them.
Vinegar, an acid, has a pH of about 3, whereas milk is more like 7, though since these could have variations depending on age, etc. I would not trust them.
TankGirl
Aquarium Advice Addict
Floridadriftwood.com has Amanos and AFAIK they will ship this time of year.
Piscesgirl
Aquarium Advice Activist
A good shrimp source is www.franksaquarium.com
Piscesgirl
Aquarium Advice Activist
Brian, It just hit me that you may be very close to Franksaquarium and can pick up. I believe he's in Long Island?
I do live on Long Island and no where in the link you provided does Frank give his address (which I always think is strange). He does provide a link for weather forcast in Lindenhurst, which is 1 town south of me.
I'm remembering I took madasafish to someones home in Lindenhurst to pick up shrimp. Oddly enough he left them in a box on his front porch because he wasn't going to be home. I'm thinking this must be the same guy. No retail establishment and strictly online.
Thanks for the info, I'll send him an email.
I'm remembering I took madasafish to someones home in Lindenhurst to pick up shrimp. Oddly enough he left them in a box on his front porch because he wasn't going to be home. I'm thinking this must be the same guy. No retail establishment and strictly online.
Thanks for the info, I'll send him an email.
brian,
just an fyi--i put some amanos in my tank, and my clown loaches totally went to town. is your really massive clown in that tank? if so, you might want to be sure that the shrimp won't become lunch. i HIGHLY recommend saes. they have obliterated whatever bba was in my tank. if it attached to floating leaves, i would bring the leaves down and anchor the mmore at the bottom of the tank (with a piece of driftwood), since the saes don't particularly swim to the top. 3 of them could clean a totally hairy leaf in 15 minutes.
on another note, i have recently been witnessing both the saes and the denisonii shooting to the top and grabbing big mouthfuls of duckweed. seems to be a new delicacy for them
cute huh?
just an fyi--i put some amanos in my tank, and my clown loaches totally went to town. is your really massive clown in that tank? if so, you might want to be sure that the shrimp won't become lunch. i HIGHLY recommend saes. they have obliterated whatever bba was in my tank. if it attached to floating leaves, i would bring the leaves down and anchor the mmore at the bottom of the tank (with a piece of driftwood), since the saes don't particularly swim to the top. 3 of them could clean a totally hairy leaf in 15 minutes.
on another note, i have recently been witnessing both the saes and the denisonii shooting to the top and grabbing big mouthfuls of duckweed. seems to be a new delicacy for them
cute huh?
Well PG, you were right on. This is the guy. I'll pick up some shrimp from him during the week.Cat - thanks for the tip. I moved my clown loaches out of that tank a few weeks ago. I want to give the ground cover a chance to fill in before I put them back. I might not return them to this tank if the shrimp earn their keep.
Current residents are: Black neons, black tetras, rasboras, pristellas, rummy nose, cories, otos, 5 tiny little angels, and a few long finned rosy barbs that I picked yesterday (as suggested by Steve Hampton).
TankGirl
Aquarium Advice Addict
BrianNY said:
I got some myself as well - do they not look like goldfish to you?
Mine are tearin' it up in quarrantine, which was a pretty heavily planted low-light tank that I was using to grow out some Endler's. I took out the Endler's since these barbs are pretty large. I have some minor concern about how they will do in my 55 based on how they are rooting around in the sand, uprooting plants, and bumbling all over.
Are yours behaving themselves, Brian?
They look just like goldfish. So far they are behaving but they're tiny. Only about an inch and half long. Somehow I don't have much hope for them as algae eaters, but we'll see.Just spent another hour or so picking up pieces of eco-complete with BBA attached. Man that was fun
. The good news is that the BBA doesn't seem to care for the blyxa japonica or the p. downoi which are becoming my favorite plants.
TankGirl
Aquarium Advice Addict
BrianNY said:Unfortunately they've also made mince meat of my blyxa japonica and riccia.
Oh no! 8O
I just put mine in my tank and the first thing that happened was my male AFF went absolutely nuts and the three barbs now have about half of the tails they used to. We are talking tatters and shreds. He seems to have calmed down today, though, and I am hoping they have come to an understanding.
I still have an occasional tuft of BBA on bits of gravel, and I have seen the barbs grabbing some and shaking their bodies back and forth violently to dislodge the algae. That is encouraging! I hope they do not damage any plants, particularly my P. stellata, which took a hit when I tore the tank down and it sat in a bucket, not too long after I had received the cutting, so it had not really gotten very established.
I am glad the CO2 is helping. If you use the chart my CO2 is sitting at about 60ppm, but the fish are behaving normally and seem perfectly happy, so I think the chemical makeup of my water makes the usual pH/KH chart inaccurate. I am going to use pearling and fish behavior to see how much to push the CO2, rather than the chart. I have pearling, so I'm holding steady where it is.
Brian, have you made other changes in your dosing routine?
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