Journal Attempting a True Dutch

[gnatster]

That’s Mojave Controsand

It's going to keep raising the gH and kH. My 10-gallon goes up on average 2 points between weekly 40% water changes with straight RO water.

 

[Kwyet]

It's going to keep raising the gH and kH. My 10-gallon goes up on average 2 points between weekly 40% water changes with straight RO water.

How long has it been set up? I’ve read that the effect may lessen a good bit over time. I wonder if putting some shallow bags of aquasoil under it would help (and how long).

 

[gnatster]

How long has it been set up?

Since July, 7 months.

 

[SkaleyAquatics]

It's going to keep raising the gH and kH. My 10-gallon goes up on average 2 points between weekly 40% water changes with straight RO water.

That is quite annoying. A substrate that's not aquasoil really should be inert. I am glad I decided not to get these substrate for my cories. I really had liked the color but the cost was too prohibitive.

 

[Kwyet]

Well, my fault because I assumed all sand except aragonite was naturally inert. When the bags came in, they did say “may raise water hardness”, but I assumed it would be minimal. When I tested yesterday, my kH was 9, gH 12. My tap water is usually kH 0-1, occasionally 2, and gH is 3-4. I did remineralize my tap water as usual before filling the tank, but I don’t add anything for kH in these tanks.

Today I did a 90% water change with straight tap water. I also cleaned the glass and set 1/2 bag of Landen aquasoil in mesh bags on top of the sand. That’s just something I had in the closet. If I find that levels are decent after a week, I might go to the trouble of putting shallow bags of aquasoil under the sand. It’ll also help keep the tank cycled while I’m experimenting, because I don’t want to add livestock until everything is settled. Meanwhile, I put the tonina in the first tank. I “think” all of the other plants can deal with it. I just don’t want to give up on this sand after just buying 5 bags of it (I used 4). Oh, and I’ll test in a couple of days. There’s also the RODI option, but I wonder if that would just make the swing greater.

Well, I need to get to work on the other tanks now.

 

[gnatster]

Looking back over my log, the first 2 months, gH and kH swung wildly between water changes. Then it settled down to a consistent 2-point increase for both over a week.

 

[Kwyet]

Looking back over my log, the first 2 months, gH and kH swung wildly between water changes. Then it settled down to a consistent 2-point increase for both over a week.

Good to know, thanks!

 

[JayP]

I was wondering how the new Oase Biomaster parts are working out for you and @*Ci* .

 

[Kwyet]

I was wondering how the new Oase Biomaster parts are working out for you and @*Ci* .

So far so good!

 

[*Ci*]

I was wondering how the new Oase Biomaster parts are working out for you and @*Ci* .

I haven’t gotten around to switching my canisters over yet. Have you noticed any increase in flow @Kwyet? or any other improvement?

 

[Kwyet]

I haven’t gotten around to switching my canisters over yet. Have you noticed any increase in flow @Kwyet? or any other improvement?

My main concern was gurgling and air-locking, and so far that hasn’t occurred. I haven’t noticed any increase in flow, but I don’t have any objective data either.

 

[Kwyet]

I should have done my good, bad & ugly collection in January, but I didn’t get it done. Here it is now:









I’ll be updating everything, but it’s just nice to have everything in one place to compare from year to year.

 

[Kwyet]

Of course, the last 2 pictures in the previous post are the original Dutch tank (now a farm tank) and the new Dutch tank. The old one has a lot of space available. This is good because the new one has about twice as many species as are allowed per the guidelines. I just want to minimize algae in the new tank and also see how these plants look when grown out before making a real layout. I resewed all of the moss panels and moved them over. They’ve developed brown spots since then, which I hope is temporary and won’t spread. Does it hate harder water? I hope not!

The hardness has settled down a lot to 7-8 dgH and 5-6 dkH . I just use straight tap water for water changes, which creates a variance of a couple of degrees. I added 6 Venezualan Cory cats on Monday, and will add another 8 next Monday. Ammonia and nitrites have remained at 0. I’ll order some more fish to come next week and take their place in quarantine. Hopefully what I want will be available. If Marble Hatchet fish are still available, I’ll get those first, and then I’ve decided I want Celebes Rainbows for the main group. I saw some videos of them, and I think they’re so pretty!

I’ve been noticing that a lot of leaves have been turning very pale. It turns out that nitrates were at 0, and CO2 was also nearly 0 even though the gauges on the regulator haven’t changed and there’s still a bubble in the reactor. I dosed 35 ml of macros after the water change and set it for an extra 6 ml weekly, and watched it go in from the doser with no problem. I tested the next day and it showed 14 ppm nitrates. I’ll test more frequently for a while to see what’s happening. As for the CO2, I made drop checkers for both tanks to turn green at 50 ppm so I can have a quick idea if things are normal, and turned this tanks bubble rate higher until the Hanna test indicated it was in the right ballpark. I think I need a better regulator after all. This one is a cheap Hygger.

Here’s a few more pics:






Thanks for reading!

 

[*Ci*]

I didn’t realize that all your tanks were in one room like that! I like!
Is that a television on the end wall? Where do you sit to watch it? lol! And how can you not be totally distracted by all the fishy activity

 

[Kwyet]

I didn’t realize that all your tanks were in one room like that! I like!
Is that a television on the end wall? Where do you sit to watch it? lol! And how can you not be totally distracted by all the fishy activity

The television was pretty new when we moved, and then this was the only wall big and empty enough in the new house to take it, so I have it for the fish room, lol! There’s a small couch/love seat at the other end of the room. I don’t really use it to watch tv much though. Mostly I use it for YouTube music while I’m busy with the aquariums.

 

[JayP]

The television was pretty new when we moved, and then this was the only wall big and empty enough in the new house to take it, so I have it for the fish room, lol! There’s a small couch/love seat at the other end of the room. I don’t really use it to watch tv much though. Mostly I use it for YouTube music while I’m busy with the aquariums.

Ha! I just spent the last couple hours working on projects while I had one of those Youtube channels with the 4k images mixed with soft jazz backing it.

 

[Kwyet]

I ordered the Celebe’s! The Marble Hatchetfish were still in stock too, but I’m still not sure they’re the perfect fit since they’re supposed to be very shy and jumpy, and I can only put so much into quarantine at a time anyway. Besides, I’m looking forward to seeing some mid-water fish!

 

[Kwyet]

So this is random and not many will care, so I’ll just put it in my own journal. I had the fun find of AQUARIST for 84 points in a Scrabble game tonight. Ok, back to regular programming, lol!

 

[Kwyet]

Well, unfortunately the one Celebes that went wonky when I added them to the quarantine tank yesterday didn’t make it. All of the others are fine so far, and I was actually sent an extra fish so I still have the 15 fish that were ordered. It’s a shame though. I tested this morning and it looked like somewhere between 0 and .25 ammonia, and 0 nitrite. I think that’s not bad since there was a dead fish adding to it, but I’ll test again tomorrow and add some Prime today. BTW, all of the Cory cats remained healthy throughout quarantine and are now happily living in the new Dutch tank.

 

[Kwyet]

The new tank has been set up 5 weeks now. There was green spot algae on a some leaves and staghorn on old growth in a few places, before I trimmed them off today. I haven’t had any diatoms and no serious algae problems so far. I keep having to increase the ferts though. Maybe someone will tell me that’s not the problem, but I still have a lot of pale growth, especially on the ludwigia. I’ve gradually raised the power of the light too, in case that’s part of it. This is from today before trimming:



Don’t judge the layout. It doesn’t have one yet, lol! I figure by the end of the month I should start making some decisions about what is staying in the tank and placement. The moss is looking better. Unless the Barclaya suddenly takes off, it won’t be big enough in time to be a focal point, so I’ll probably need to rethink that.

Back to ferts, I tested before the water change today: 8.6 ppm nitrates, 11 dgH, 8.5 dkH , 0 Fe, 2 phosphate. I also tested calcium and magnesium for the first time with Salifert test kits, but I need to try them again because I don’t think the readings made sense (calcium turned blue immediately after adding the .6 ml of reagent, and magnesium turned blue before adding any reagent).

I think it’s okay that Fe was 0 because it was already noon when I tested, and doesn’t it get absorbed very quickly after adding it to the water? I think nitrates are still too low though, so I increased them by another 7 ml/week and did the same to the micros to match it. I should probably pick a consistent time and test daily for a week to really see what’s happening. I did figure out that with the new dosing, the tank is now getting 34.3/8.8/40.2 macros and .65 Fe weekly. How do those numbers look? Part of that is the 3x dose macros after the 50% water change.

As for light, I haven’t measured the par yet (because it’s a bit of a pain), but it’s at 65% power. By comparison, the other tank is at 74% power with the same light, and a little taller, and I believe it has a par of 50 at the substrate. I’ll probably move this one up to 74% next week.

Well, I guess that’s it. Anyone with any insights is welcome to share them! Thanks for reading!