Custom 194g saltie turned freshwater, planted

[leftyfish]

Here is my setup:


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194 gallon DT, (72Lx24Wx26H) 56g sump (48x16x18), coast to coast overflow with bean animal setup for silent running and surface skimming. Waterblaster 10000hy return pump split with double reactor in which I have ceramic pellets and foam/bioballs. 3 AI Sol lights with 70 degree optics, CF freshwater bulb in sump with anacharis growing. 800watt heater on Jbj true temp controller plugged into my Neptune aquacontroller with temp and pH probe. On order: Milwaukee CO2 regulator, indicator soln. What can I say, you need a lot of equip for saltwater, lol. I plan on running a auto doser (DIY) and the solenoid off the controller.

Substrate: black diamond sand blasting compound. Planted tank with as many plants that I could get locally for good price, I hope to add more rare plants once I get CO2 and dosing squared away. Read on soft cycling and added some fish at 9 day mark, noticed .05ppm ammonia on day 13. Added Flourish and bumped up light intensity, moved anacharis to sump and put it on opposite light schedule. No ammonia, detected by next morning, or since.

Fish:
7 Diamond tetras
13 glow light tetras
5 zebra danios (red GloFish)

Plants (multiples of each unless stated):
Anacharis/Egeria densa
1 Brazilian Sword/Spathiphyllum tasson
Cryptocoryne wendtii red
Cryptocoryne undulata
Dwarf Baby Tears/Hemianthus callitrichoides
1 Dwarf Onion/Zephyranthes candida
Giant Hairgrass/Eleocharis montevidensis
Glossostigma elatinoides
Ludwigia repens
Micro Sword/ Lilaeopsis brasiliensis
Moneywort/Bacopa moneri
Purple Cabomba/Caboma Palaeformis
1 Rose Sword/Echinodorus rose
Cryptocoryne spiralis
Water Sprite/Ceratopteris thalictroides
Rotala rotundifolia

Decor:
Two store bought rock like structures
Lots of cholla wood from trip to AZ
Rock from outdoors, need one more rock

Future stocking plans:

Assassin snails if any snails show up from the plants. If not then some blue snails or rabbits, I like any of the three.

6 Australian Rainbow Fish
5 Parkinsoni Rainbows
7 Boesemani Rainbow Fish or 3 Boesemani, 4 Goyder River Rainbows.
I really like the Lake Kutubu Rainbows also, so I'm sure I want Rainbows to finish stocking, but not sure of the combinations.

The flow from the water blaster seems too much for angels, so chose rainbows over them. Any suggestions? I'm sure I'll have lots of questions soon, new to pressurized CO2, and my freshwater tanks have all been 36g or less.

Oh, also need to order or make inline CO2 diffuser that I'll run coming out of the reactor into the return compartment of the sump.

 

[Andrew McFadden]

Can we say massive sounds great

 

[leftyfish]

Can we say massive sounds great

Yeah...it's a good size.

So I hooked up my CO2 regulator (Milwaukee MA957). I have about 3-4 bubbles per second. I decided to do the PPS-pro method for ferts. Right now I'll just add daily but will plan to DIY a setup to auto dose the two solutions. I am feeding the CO2 temporarily into my return pump, is there any problem leaving it this way? Will it wear out my pump?

I keep going back and forth about the final fish I want to add. I am happy to report I've had two days in a row where the danios and glow light tetras didn't decide to take a vacation in the coast2coast overflow. At least I realized my fear of them sticking to the pipes was false, they were swimming like normal despite the high flow.

I did get two yellow mystery snails, I had them in the past and love how cute they are.

 

[AngelWings]

Can't wait to see pictures!

 

[leftyfish]

I added CO2 last week, started dosing PPS-pro method for ferts. I've noticed some plants seem to be melting away. My pH is 8-8.2, so I'm wondering if that has something to do with it? I don't really want to play with pH, I want to do water changes from tap, so I'm thinking I will have to stick with easy plants that don't mind the higher pH.

 

[Billbug68]

I added CO2 last week, started dosing PPS-pro method for ferts. I've noticed some plants seem to be melting away. My pH is 8-8.2, so I'm wondering if that has something to do with it? I don't really want to play with pH, I want to do water changes from tap, so I'm thinking I will have to stick with easy plants that don't mind the higher pH.

Your ph is still that high with the co2 running?

 

[leftyfish]

Yeah, it goes to 8.2 by morning and then drops with CO2 during day to about 8 by time CO2 shuts off.

 

[Billbug68]

What is your light/co2 schedule?

 

[leftyfish]

CO2 kicks on around 7 am, lights around 8:30-9:00am, CO2 off 7 pm, lights go down from 7-9 to lights out but on a moon cycle so when it's a full moon there is some night light. I dose the ferts somewhere b/w 7 and 8:30.

 

[Billbug68]

CO2 kicks on around 7 am, lights around 8:30-9:00am, CO2 off 7 pm, lights go down from 7-9 to lights out but on a moon cycle so when it's a full moon there is some night light. I dose the ferts somewhere b/w 7 and 8:30.

That's a pretty long photoperiod. Is everything on timers? It sounds like you're doing it manually by the 7-9 statements. You should have everything on timers to keep it consistent, and cut your lights down to 8 hours.

A few other questions, are you using any kind of bubblers that could be oxygenating the water, counteracting the co2? What is your diffusion method? Filtration? Do you have a drop checker? You should be able to see more than a .2 drop in ph.

 

[leftyfish]

Everything on timers, it does actinics that's why I give the range, full daylight is around 11-7, it ramps up and down the other times. Yes bubble counter, I have it at 1-2 dps, I'm thinking I need to bump that up. I have it in the sump going into the return pump, I don't see bubbles coming out the return so I think it is diffused by the time it is up to the tank. I plan on sound a DIY reactor and putting that in right before the return pump.

So maybe more CO2? Would and indicator work in the tank given the high pH? Why is my pH so high, I need to check it again out of the tap, but I'm pretty sure that is what it is. Tank pH is on a controller and probe, but the hanging pH reader matches it.

 

[Billbug68]

First off, if the plants are new to the tank, especially crypts, they may melt and grow back. It does sound like you need to crank up the co2, especially with that much water volume. Is your co2 solenoid hooked to your ph controller? You could invest in a drop checker, it uses a solution with a set dkh and the low range ph solution. It'll give you a better idea of where to keep your bubbles per second. Pretty cheap, you can find the stuff on eBay.

 

[leftyfish]

Thanks! I was thinking it wouldn't work with the pH being so high, but the CO2 is the only thing that is going to go into the vial, correct? So it will turn green at around 30% CO2? Yes the plants are new, but some that I thought already melted were melting again. The next few days should tell me. I did see new growth on some of the stems.

 

[leftyfish]

I do have the solenoid hooked up to the controller but I didn't tie it in to the pH at all, I can write a program, but I didn't see the need with the pH not dropping that much.

 

[Billbug68]

The drop checker turns green at about 30 ppm of co2, which is ideal. You can set the co2 on the ph controller to turn off at a ph of 7 and see what color that leaves your drop checker. You can fine tune from there. What lights are you running?

 

[leftyfish]

I run 3 AI sol whites that I had on my reef, I have some tannins from the cholla wood, so I bumped them up.

 

[Billbug68]

I run 3 AI sol whites that I had on my reef, I have some tannins from the cholla wood, so I bumped them up.

I don't think reef lights are the correct color spectrum to grow plants. You may want to ask around a bit on here to confirm. That may be another part of the problem.

 

[leftyfish]

The lights are fine, whites are 10k, the blues (470nm) are more for looks where as in the reef the blues were needed for certain algaes/coral to grow. FW plants from my understanding need b/w 5700 and 18k for growth, so the 10k falls within that range. The first plants that melted a few weeks ago have new growth. We will see about this last batch of melted plants.

So I did math, as painful as it was and determined with my dKH and a goal of 18ppm CO2, I need to set the CO2 to turn on when pH goes higher than 7.53 (18ppm CO2). I need to read what is a realistic range to have it turn off.

 

[Billbug68]

Yes, but the problem being, the co2 isn't the only thing buffering your tank water so your calculations may be inaccurate. That's why in the drop checker, 4dkh solution is used, the only thing effecting the color or numbers is the dissolved gases.

 

[leftyfish]

I know there are a lot of good resources out there, but here is a link that explains pH, CO2, GH/KH, etc in a really easy way. CO2 doesn't buffer the water, it does change the pH. There is a good chart on that link that shows what things alter pH, KH, etc.

http://www.shrimpnow.com/content.php/133-Water-Parameters-pH-GH-KH-NO3-CO2

My KH in degrees is 20.4 (salifert), so it is hard to alter the pH because the KH/alkalinity/buffering capacity is really high. That is why I'm aiming for 18ppm for CO2, or to decrease the pH to 7.53. I need to build the inline reactor this week.

The color guide is good as a quick reference to know that the CO2 level is close to what you want it to be. I'll check out ebay for sure, but I'm confident in the math, I just have to check dKH at different times of day for a while to make sure it is stable (due to whatever things that can change the buffering capacity of the water).

On a not CO2 news, I've decided to get some juvenile angels, so I'm getting some wide fin blue zebra, wide fin blue ghost pearl skin and blue platinum babies sent on Tuesday. I hope to have them by Weds in a 10g QT, once they have acclimated and are eating fine, I'll add them to the tank. I have always wanted angels, but really wanted ones with good blue color, I think these are going to be perfect. I think my flow will be fine as long as I don't add power heads.