Wow, that is going back a bit!
One of the committee members here has air driven filters and cheap to run / move a lot of water! I’ll see if I can find a link.
(Darn it, cant find link but it would basically filter a pond).
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Low Tech and El Natural Forum
- Thread starter Caliban07
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
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Wow, that is going back a bit!
One of the committee members here has air driven filters and cheap to run / move a lot of water! I’ll see if I can find a link.
(Darn it, cant find link but it would basically filter a pond).
King Fisher
Aquarium Advice Addict
The one they have is a plastic pen plax if I remember right. I need to go back to the store.
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Caliban07
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Couple of pictures of the Wallichii. I’ve never had it grow this well even though its not particularly mind blowing. I didn’t trim the stems before planting which I probably should have. You can see the old emersed growth turning brown and dropping away. You may even see the amano shrimp going to work on the lower parts too. I’m so happy with the size/span on these leaves. They’ve only been planted a matter of days, so the majority of the stem is no longer relevant. Perhaps if I didn’t have a 6w LED they would be a little more pink.
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Caliban07
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Caliban07
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Couple of new Dwarf Sag blades coming up and two new leaves on the Anubias. The DS is painfully slow.
Also some duckweed doing ok despite little in the way of nutrients.
Also some duckweed doing ok despite little in the way of nutrients.
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Caliban07
Aquarium Advice Addict
Ok I gave in and setup the canister filter because I couldn’t bare the turbidity any longer. The little eheim pickup just wasn’t cutting it until the sponge clogged which was affecting oxygen mixing.
The water is now absolutely crystal clear. It reminds me of the clarity I achieved with the 180 litre. I now 100% realise that in both cases this is down to the maturity of both biological filters.
My advice to anyone in this hobby is that patience is a necessity. We’re talking 12-18 months worth of maturing here. Not 4-5 weeks for the nitrogen cycle. Your system is no where near ready. The beauty is that once you have one fully matured (and they just keep getting better) you can seed a new tank in a matter of hours.
One of the things you can do is have a look at your substrate. It should be spotless. If you still have poop building up on the bottom your biological filter isn’t efficient enough to deal with the production. Will it eventually be able to keep up? I believe so myself but you’re gonna need plants to help keep the fish safe from toxic nitrogen and good water mixing at the surface to keep things ticking over.
Happy fish keeping. Happy new year.
The water is now absolutely crystal clear. It reminds me of the clarity I achieved with the 180 litre. I now 100% realise that in both cases this is down to the maturity of both biological filters.
My advice to anyone in this hobby is that patience is a necessity. We’re talking 12-18 months worth of maturing here. Not 4-5 weeks for the nitrogen cycle. Your system is no where near ready. The beauty is that once you have one fully matured (and they just keep getting better) you can seed a new tank in a matter of hours.
One of the things you can do is have a look at your substrate. It should be spotless. If you still have poop building up on the bottom your biological filter isn’t efficient enough to deal with the production. Will it eventually be able to keep up? I believe so myself but you’re gonna need plants to help keep the fish safe from toxic nitrogen and good water mixing at the surface to keep things ticking over.
Happy fish keeping. Happy new year.
Happy New Year!
Yeah, damaged by bolbitis fern - going to be months waiting for it to grown new leaves.
Yeah, damaged by bolbitis fern - going to be months waiting for it to grown new leaves.
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Caliban07
Aquarium Advice Addict
Found a way to have a crystal clear surface, oxygenate, not have flow bashing your fish around and keep co2 in water longer if not injecting. Was speaking with a friend who convinced me to give it a go. I noticed something similar on an older tank a hand with a little hang on back overflow filter.
Basically I have my canister outlet about an inch above the water, turn the flow right down and increase the diameter of the outflow pipe.
The result is a slow ‘pouring’ effect. The water dropping in pushes oxygenated water down to the bottom where it’s drawn back in and recycled. As a result the surface water moves towards the pouring effect and in turn is pushed downwards until after a short while, no more biofilm. My fish perked up immediately as my previous configuration wasn’t ideal. I even noticed a return of Cyanobacteria along the front glass in the substrate. I’m convinced it will recede now the o2 levels are higher. Fish colour improved and the water clarity is insane. So good to have a clear surface again. I will post a video of the configuration tomorrow if anyone’s interested. I’ll always be running the config in future.
Here’s a link to the tiny, low flow overflow filter I once used to great effect. The biomedia in these things is very highly oxygenated too.
http://www.petsathome.com/webapp/wc...VxzLTCh1qugEMEAQYAiABEgJ-3fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Basically I have my canister outlet about an inch above the water, turn the flow right down and increase the diameter of the outflow pipe.
The result is a slow ‘pouring’ effect. The water dropping in pushes oxygenated water down to the bottom where it’s drawn back in and recycled. As a result the surface water moves towards the pouring effect and in turn is pushed downwards until after a short while, no more biofilm. My fish perked up immediately as my previous configuration wasn’t ideal. I even noticed a return of Cyanobacteria along the front glass in the substrate. I’m convinced it will recede now the o2 levels are higher. Fish colour improved and the water clarity is insane. So good to have a clear surface again. I will post a video of the configuration tomorrow if anyone’s interested. I’ll always be running the config in future.
Here’s a link to the tiny, low flow overflow filter I once used to great effect. The biomedia in these things is very highly oxygenated too.
http://www.petsathome.com/webapp/wc...VxzLTCh1qugEMEAQYAiABEgJ-3fD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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Good luck on the blue-green algae! We had a return of it here in the society display tank (not getting maintained well, likely to get sold off).
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Caliban07
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One of my natural jungle tanks.
No pump, no filter, no heater, no fertiliser, no water changes, just sand, lighting and fish food.
*Not my tank. Just a member of our back to basic group*
No pump, no filter, no heater, no fertiliser, no water changes, just sand, lighting and fish food.
*Not my tank. Just a member of our back to basic group*
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Caliban07
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Over the past 10 months a canister filter was employed on this tank to see if anaerobic denitrification could occur. Over this period, what was noted was that nitrate had been slowly building and plant growth slowing.
In the last few weeks the filter material was removed. The owner claims the plants responded almost like a light switch had been turned on. Duckweed growth came back strong and fast. TDS and nitrate is slowly dropping.
This tank has been setup for 24 years. Soil base. Fish food, light and a bit of water circulation. No water changes or dosing.
I wonder why that is? Any thoughts?
In the last few weeks the filter material was removed. The owner claims the plants responded almost like a light switch had been turned on. Duckweed growth came back strong and fast. TDS and nitrate is slowly dropping.
This tank has been setup for 24 years. Soil base. Fish food, light and a bit of water circulation. No water changes or dosing.
I wonder why that is? Any thoughts?
King Fisher
Aquarium Advice Addict
How long between cleanings of the filter media?
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Caliban07
Aquarium Advice Addict
The media was left untouched during the ten months. Denitrification would only occur in areas of low oxygen so you would need area within the filter that would support this. Cleaning the media in this case would have been counter productive.
Increased flow maybe as new canister media not blocked by gunk?? Although would of thought duckweed would be fine anywhere 
I assume the filter media replaced was sponge / ceramics maybe?
I assume the filter media replaced was sponge / ceramics maybe?
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Caliban07
Aquarium Advice Addict
Increased flow maybe as new canister media not blocked by gunk?? Although would of thought duckweed would be fine anywhere
Well I’ve always heard the term canister filters are ‘nitrate factories’ if left undisturbed but never really thought or understood why.
My hypothesis is the introduction of the canister filter allowed for more efficient process of ammonia by microbes as opposed to plant/microbe. Basically the plants had a reduced access to ammonia. The ammonia would be taken up by the plants before nitrate could be produced. As a result of adding the canister filter the owner also noted an increase in TDS despite rainwater top offs. The subsequent growth after removing the filter is also reducing the TDS.
The full discussion can be found here
https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/why-filter.58444/page-2#post-571200
King Fisher
Aquarium Advice Addict
In that case it's understandable. You have to clean the media in a canister filter.
Ammonia test at night with lights off (assuming no use by plants) might be interesting on first couple of nights?
Idk, still thinking on it. Be interesting though.
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Caliban07
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Set up a bubbler in this tank and removed the circulation pump. The pump had clogged somehow and I hadn’t noticed. You can tell very quickly when water movement and surely oxygenation is compromised. Forgot my little self saying ‘oxygen is king’. This shouldn’t happen again. Oxygen/co2 levels will remain constant now. As evaporation occurs the bubbler will still oxygenate in the same way.
Got in a discussion with some old timers. One who owned a fish store and was talking to an old supplier about filters and why breeders use air driven equipment said this to me.
‘On a separate note I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with one of my old suppliers. We were talking about equipment, and the subject of magnetic fields, noise vibrations etc came up. He said most of the breeders won’t touch anything other than air driven filters. Most fish simply don’t spawn in tanks running mag drive pumps. Plus it seems to inhibit fry growth. Put your ear against your tank, and you’ll soon discover that 50hz vibration that even the quietest powerhead produces. Now imagine trying to sleep and go about your life with that running 24/7.
In fact most fish are actually spawned in still water with zero equipment. Which then brings us back to the subject of all the fish food that we suck up by filtering’
Interesting...
Got in a discussion with some old timers. One who owned a fish store and was talking to an old supplier about filters and why breeders use air driven equipment said this to me.
‘On a separate note I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with one of my old suppliers. We were talking about equipment, and the subject of magnetic fields, noise vibrations etc came up. He said most of the breeders won’t touch anything other than air driven filters. Most fish simply don’t spawn in tanks running mag drive pumps. Plus it seems to inhibit fry growth. Put your ear against your tank, and you’ll soon discover that 50hz vibration that even the quietest powerhead produces. Now imagine trying to sleep and go about your life with that running 24/7.
In fact most fish are actually spawned in still water with zero equipment. Which then brings us back to the subject of all the fish food that we suck up by filtering’
Interesting...
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Caliban07
Aquarium Advice Addict
Recent API nitrate and phosphate tests [emoji846]
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Caliban07
Aquarium Advice Addict
Just grows and grows.
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