help

[focusmarlon]

Thank you guys for your input. I have battled bloat and ich with african cichlids but never hole in the head. Looks pretty gross. So best to treat specific fish ? I have metronidozle from when I would treat for bloat and malachite green.

 

[MickeM]

I think there is a med called "Hexaex"(Tetra) .. fluid or in tabs..

Or/and.. there is also this med from JBL..
https://www.jbl.de/?lang=en&mod=products&func=detail&id=5575
(I think this one is not as bad for other organisms in the tank..than some old meds.. At least that`s what I have been told from my LFS..!!)

BTW.. I don`t know what is available in other parts of the planet/markets than the European ..

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

With good circulation & aeration (appropriate for the fish load), a tank without supplemental CO2 injection should always have CO2 pretty close to equilibrium with the air above it. In a tank with very little circulation, the question of whether CO2 increases or decreases (relative to equilibrium with the air above) depends on the rates of CO2 production (by bacteria and fish) versus CO2 uptake by plants. Many aquatic plants can uptake CO2 and ammonia (small amounts) even in the dark, storing it in their cells for later use when the light comes back. In tanks with a heavy fish load, or with lots of decaying mulm, CO2 probably increases. In tanks with a heavy plant load and few or small fish, CO2 probably decreases. In any case, aeration can NOT decrease CO2 below the air-equilibrium level, so unless you're injecting CO2 to keep it artificially high, there's no reason to fear aeration.

Yes, exactly that.

Aquatic plants also store oxygen in their tissues during the day, which they then use for respiration at night. Partially because of this, as "MickeM" has shown, you can keep planted tanks, without any form of filtration or water movement, if you have tanks with a large surface area to volume ratio, small non-rheophilic fish, a low bioload, clean water and some floating or emergent plants.

I don't think any-one can argue with the success of <"Some pics from a basement with planted tanks">.

I took a walk to my friends "planted" basement with hope of some new pics. His hobbies are killifishes, tanks without filters/mechanical circulation, sphagnum tanks, plants, snails, live food, bettas,apistos and all kind of small fishes and shrimps.

I think of techniques to increase the gas surface exchange area in the same way I think of plants, they are both mechanisms that build in resilience and negative feedback loops. They aren't essential, they just make water management a lot easier.

Filters
Originally I didn't have any linear flow, because in the lab. I used hydroleca based over-tank planted wet and dry trickle filters for both biological filtration and gas exchange.

They are still the gold standard for this, but I soon realised that these aren't suitable for most aquarists, because they aren't "off the shelf" items, the water dripping is noisy, you get a lot of evaporation etc.

If I had a fish house I would only have vertical flow, because I'd use a piston air pump, air ring and sponge filters (the sort of thing sold by <"Swiss Tropicals">).

I hadn't realised that a lot of people were using canister filters, and not only that, they were using them as a syphon as well as for biological filtration, and this is madness. If you use a canister filter you really need to ensure that enough oxygen enters the closed canister to keep all the filter media aerobic. People will argue that you can have both aerobic nitrification (oxidation of NH3 > NO2 > NO3) and the anaerobic de-nitrification of NO3 to N2 gas in the same filter and it is possible, but it is fraught with dangers and I'm never going to go there.

Darrel, Regani, or others: Alkalinity data in the table above (darrel's post #15) is in micro-equivalents per Liter. Is there an easy way to convert uEq/L into mg/L (emphasis on easy, please)?

You'll need "Regani" for the chemical explanation, but it is approx:

1000 micro-eqL-1 = 2.8 dKH = 50 ppm CaCO3 equivalents (I have this written down, but probably originally from <"here">?).

So we are talking very soft water.

If you didn't have alkalinity, or conductivity, figures you could probably deduce this from the pH range, as any appreciable amount of carbonate buffering would stop the pH going below pH7. (Figure from <"Alkalinity and the pH of water">)

You also need to assume that carbonate buffering and alkalinity are the same thing (technically they aren't, but in practice they normally will be) and that they have the same relationship with pH (again they don't, but in practice they usually do).

cheers Darrel

 

[gerald]

I don't think any-one can argue with the success of ...

Speak for your own country. In America we can argue with anything; Freedom means we don't let facts get in our way.