An old nemesis found

In my last post I mentioned that I’ve been fighting algae for the last six months. That is true. And before my long dry-spell of no posting, I mentioned that I though I had conquered the persistent GDA on the tank walls, that I had been fighting pretty much since the tank went up.

But after declaring victory, I realized that I had been cheating.

Normally I don’t do regular, manual water changes on my tank. The automation on the tank does multiple small drain/fill cycles each night that equates to a 50% water change every three days.  But while I was fighting this algae on my glass, I had been doing a 90% water change every weekend. This allowed me to clean my glass of the algae. And over time, the amount I was cleaning every week became less and less. Until finally I thought I had it licked. But all that changed when I decided to go back to my normal routine of no huge weekend water changes with rigorous glass cleaning. And WOW, the algae came back in a hurry.

And rather than aggressively scrape it off, I decided to let it go a few weeks to see if this really was GDA (green dust algae) as I thought. It virtually brushed off, easy to clean. So I thought I knew what I was dealing with. But I was wrong. After a few weeks of letting it grow, the acrylic tank walls were covered in beautiful green threads, waving in the current. Thread Algae! My own personal algae nemesis returned! Or rather, had never really gone away.

In the Scolley’s Follies category here you’ll see a tank that got badly infested with this stuff. And I mean bad. There were extenuating circumstances in that tank that you can read about in that post, but bottom line was - thread algae was completely out of control in that tank. And now I found out that it is what I had actually been fighting in this tank for a year and a half. Why? Or rather, why my tanks?

I had a very long thread where I battled this stuff in detail, aggressively for months, documented over at plantedtank.net. So I went back and re-read that. And then I started researching other places where I found this algae. And I found it to be a bad nuisance algae in another type of tank - marine tanks. Granted, I’m sure it’s somewhat different on some technical biological level. But fundamentally it looks the same. And everywhere you find this stuff, there are a few things in common, beside the obvious light and water. They are:

1. Strong water current
2. Phosphate
3. Silicates

Strong water current

This seems obvious. Just look at the algae’s morphology. It is long threads, that grow by adding length to the thread - threads that wave in the current, picking up nutrients as they pass by, and growing the thread. You don’t find this stuff in slow or still waters.

Phosphates

I battled this documented in dialogues with well intentioned “experts” over at plantedtank.net. There is a popular belief that by making sure that you have enough of every nutrient your plants need in your tank, then your plants will flourish, and they will somehow magically “out compete” algae, even though there is enough nutrients to go around for both plants and algae. Well that’s bunk. Unfortunately a large vocal group in the planted tank community drinks this particular kool-ade. Not me. I’ve proved it to be incorrect to my own satisfaction, in my own tanks.

It is clear, that if you run out of any given nutrient, opportunistic algaes will take over. So you can’t bottom out of any nutrient. Zero ppm is bad, even for phosphate (in a freshwater planted tank that is). And it is true that your plants flourish in an excess of nutrients. But where the wheel falls off the wagon with this thinking is the belief that flourishing plants will make your algae problems go away. In some tank it will. But in others not. If you, like me, have one of those nasty algaes that will not die while your plants are flourishing, you’ve got to deprive the algae. Or find something that eats it. And for me, in this tank, that has meant managing my phosphate level so that it remains between 0.05 and 0.2 ppm. It’s seems to be enough for the plants, and it appears to seriously limit the growth of the thread algae.

Silicates

This is the real key. I’m not going to say that you won’t find this algae in tanks without silicates present, but you sure as heck will find it in abundance in plenty of tanks with excess silicates. Want to see an example? Just go to your nearest pet shop and look for it in the marine tanks. Chances are very high that you will find in in tanks with silica sand bottoms, but not in tanks with bare bottoms or calcium substrates. And I’ve never had it in a tank that did not have sand on the bottom either. But I’ve got more evidence, and I find this somewhat compelling…

When I was battling this the first time - in my original Big Clear Kahuna tank - it was my first tank with a sand substrate. And because I was doing everything “right” in conventional planted tank wisdom, I eventually questioned my test values of my water, and sent three samples off to be professionally ($$$) tested. One sample was my tap water. One sample was from my Big Clear Kahuna tank that had the awful thread algae problem. And one was from my little “Mickey’s 20″ tank that had no thread algae at all. In fact I was barely ever even doing water changes in that tank, because it was so stable. That should have been a clue. The test results can be found in the chart at the top of this post.

At the time I was focused on my NPK values, and to some extent micros like iron and magnesium. But I was foolish to ignore the silicate readings. They are unusually high for, and they tell a good story. The silicates in my tap water is a very high 7 ppm. They were half that in the Big Clear Kahuna, and were less than 1 in Mickey’s 20g. I can’t explain why it’s so high in my tap water. I gather that some water companies actually add silicates for some “benign” reason. But that number plummets to less than 1 in Mickey’s 20. Why? Because plants (and algae) do use silicates. And with very infrequent water changes, even the very high starting point of 7 ppm got cut down to residual levels over time by being consumed by plants. But the Big Clear Kahuna on the other hand was receiving weekly 50% water changes, which should have boosted the silicates, keeping it up at a near 7 ppm level. And keep in mind, plenty of silicates were also available due to the sand substrate. So why were the silicate being knocked down to 3.5 ppm, when my plants were barely growing they were so covered with algae. What was reducing the ppm from 7 to 3.5? Easy! The algae itself was a major silicate consumer. And the abundance of it - combined with plenty of phosphates and nice brisk water flow - was enough to kick that particular algae into overdrive.

So high water is important. And the presence of phosphates is too. But in my opinion the lynch pin is that excess of silicates. That explains why so many people have “proved” that this is not caused by excess phosphates. It’s not. It’s caused by the combination of all three things; flow, phosphate, and silicates. Remove one and it goes away.

My current problem explained

So, if silicates are so important, why was my current tank getting better - as evidenced by less algae on the tank walls - when the tank remains bathed in excess silicates? Between the sand substrate provide substantial silicates, and the tank is automatically providing itself a 50% water change every three days (of 7 ppm tap water), silicates should  ALWAYS be there in excess. But I’m managing the phosphate level now. As stated before, I’m keeping it between 0.05 and 0.2 ppm, and the algae is staying in check. And the plants are growing.

Unfortunately this means I’m having to do water testing - which I hate - and periodically adding Potassium Phosphate - which I also hate. And all this may get messed up in the spring, when my tap water begins to get influenced by agricultural runoff, and the Phosphate ppm starts to climb. I may have to resort to installing an DI filter. I hope not.

Concluding

All this is my own conjecture, based on my observations. The test here is going to be time. Will my tank thrive, and remain relatively free of thread algae now that I’m keeping my phosphates low?

Here’s a pic of the tank now, so you can get a before and after view. Here’s “before”. You can see the evidence of where the algae was on every leaf, and can even be found in some clumps of moss if you zoom in. And finally, the Hygrophilia corymbosa got whacked back pretty bad. Lets’ see if it can bounce back without me doing the weekly algae cleaning, and tightly managing that phosphate level. Time will tell.

When I set this up, I never really intended it to be an active blog… you know, the kind where I’m contributing every day. Though the fact that this web site is technically run on a Wordpress blog engine allow this site to show the chronological progression of my tank. That’s a good thing I suppose.

Anyway, I haven’t posted in months and months. Have been busy professionally, cutting into hobby time. And have also been sidelined with a little aquarium DIY project. Plus my PC went belly up, and then my little home file server (that I keep my pics on) went belly up. Getting all that rebuilt took time. And now here it is, a good 6+ months since my last post.  So, here’s what’s been going on in my tanks:

• New red discus
• New white discus
• Aggressive thread algae
• Algae eaters

I previously posted pics of my 3R2’s, a type of red discus. These were the first juvenile discus I’ve ever had. In the past I’ve always gotten adults or sub adults. The conventional wisdom is that juveniles are hard pressed to get sufficient nutrition in a planted tank. Well I’m here to tell you that is true. Long story short, I eventually gave away a few of them, and one of them was badly stunted from months in my tank - at a crucial time in it’s development - not getting enough food.

So I got a second batch of red fish. This time they were 3R’s, a precursor to the 3R2 strain. Very red. And I got these as juveniles too, certain proof that I’m a slow learner. They worked out better than the 3R2’s, and went into my tank after a few months in quarantine.

All of this was to provide a little contrast in the tank. The blues of my other fish kind of blended in with the green plants, not enough color contrast. And so in a final attempt at more contrast I got some white discus too.

These are called Show Whites. They aren’t albino, just white. The problem though, is that they eventually begin to get tinted with pigments from their food. I feed my fish frozen blood worms and Tetra Colorbits. Only one of the Snow Whites has developed a taste for the tetra color bits, and that’s good because it’s slowly turning into a Snow Yellow. More amber really. And these were juveniles too, which probably proves that maybe I’m not really a slow learner, just very stubborn.

The Snow White have only been in my display tank - the Son of Kahuna - for a few weeks. But they’ve been mercilessly harassed by the juvenile 3R’s, and they haven’t been getting much food at all. Hiding in the weeds most of the time. They do come out at night, and when the overhead lights are off. But they are coward in the full light, and the harrassment by the red juveniles does not help.

So last night I scooped ouy my most aggressive 3R’s and put them in my quarantine tank. I figure I’ll let them chill out in there with no other discus for a month or so to let the Snow Whites get comfortable, and establish their own place in the pecking order. The 3R’s are feisty enough that I’m sure they’ll integrate back into the pack, but maybe not as the bullies they are now.

And for all the problems with the various red and white juvies beating each other up, my adults are doing great. I’ve got just shy of non-stop breeding going on. Here’s a pair of my hi-bodied leopards, doing what they seem to always be doing… guarding eggs or wigglers.

Next I need to catch you up on my algae woes.

In fact, if you check my “Links” tab, you’ll see that I count their web site as one of my most valuable references. You should to.

Anyway, I told this gent that the average plant may have a tough time in the warm water of my discus tank. And to my delight he sent three plants, two of which look like the may do very well. He sent Staurogyne sp., a foreground suitable plant from warm Amazonian waters. It looks great already.

He also sent Myriophyllum mezianum. It’s an interesting looking stem plant from Madagascar. But I’ve had bad luck with other Myriophyllum in my warm, very soft water. So I’m trying not to get my hopes up on this one. Both of the plants are featured on the Tropica web site, and I’ve never seen either in the states.

The final plant in the shipment was Lindernia roundifolia ‘variegated’. I can’t find much on this plant. Looks a lot like ‘baby’s tears’, or Hemianthus callitrichoides, commonly called ‘HC’ or ‘cuba’. I only got a few cut stems of that. These are not doing as well. Getting a lot of stem melt. But that could be due to the low Potassium in my tank.

Before I planted any of these plants, I took half of them and rooted them in a tank of very wet ADA aquasoil, in a small covered aquarium, and top a grow light over them. They all appear to be in their emersed form, and are already putting out new buds in this warm, humid simulation on natural emersed conditions.

The rest I put into shallow plastic dishes of ADA aquasoil, then covered the aqauasoil with sand to keep the aquasoil from getting all over the sand in the tank, and put them in the tank under direct light. Obviously this is not a permanent arrangement, but one that will let me try our the plants. The emersed set of plants are both my insurance of something going wrong in the thank, and hopefully a nursery for more plants. All of these should be slow growers, so this test will likely take a bit of time.

Unfortunately my PC died on me this week, so my ability to post pictures is really limited. I’m composing this entire post on my iPhone, which is a real PITA. But I’m grateful that I have an alternative until I get a new PC up and running. I’m going to try and post pics with the little iPhone camera. They’ll look like crap, to be sure. But it’s the best I can do at the moment.

I’m thrilled and grateful for the chance to try out these plants. Wish me luck!

Well the tank is springing back nicely. And my persistent algae problems are massively diminished. So while some of the leaves of plants have algae on them that they acquired several weeks ago, no new leaves have algae. And that is a nice change.

The Hygrophilia corymbosa is slowly filling in and getting bushier. I initially let it grow too tall before I trimmed it. Now I’m topping it off every week so that it will fill in better. The Hygrophila difformis snapping back. And my Cryptocoryne wendtii and Echinodorus ‘Rubin’ are both totally algae free! Only the Echinodorus bleheri - the sword plant - has any algae. But that plant is off the the side and not getting enough light, and it appears to be underfertilized too. I’ll have to look into that…

I’ve put in an Eheim autofeeder to make sure the new red 3R2’s are getting enough food, often enough. The upshot is that ALL the fish are getting more food. I can see them all fattening up, and getting larger. Good for them I suppose.

The overall tank is still unbalanced visually, and improving the aquascape will be the focus of my efforts this year, now that I’ve got this algae licked. Well, I say “licked”… the GDA on the glass is still there. But it is quite manageable - requiring one 15 minute session of glass cleaning every week. And that persistent algae on the sand has stayed away for a few weeks, thank goodness. So it’s all controllable.

The new red 3R2s are still hiding. Three of the five barely ever come out. If anyone is in the room at all, the skittish three hide. So I have no idea of they are coming out to eat. I hope so. I’m just hoping that they will get over this with time.

I made a number of important changes to the tank to get ahead of this aglae. I know you can only change one variable at a time if you want any idea of what does/does not work. But I was desparate to control my algae problem and changed multiple variables. Problem is, I just don’t know which one was responsible for the change, or what combination:

1. Started using a “siesta”, or 90 minutes in the middle of the day with no lights.
2. Reduced the photoperiod to seven (7) hours total time of lights on.
3. Eliminated macro dosing, except potassium.
4. Reduced potassium dosing way back to one tenth of its normal volume.
5. Reduced micro dosing back to one tenth of its normal volume.
6. Reduced CO2 back to around 15 ppm.

A lot of people will tell me some of those things are real “no-no”s. But it’s working, and it’s hard to argue with success. Over time I’ll pick up the CO2 dosing. And I’m sure I’ll be forece to tweak the macro/micro dosing. But for now, I’m happy to have the tank healthy.

Wow. Been a while since I last posted. Sorry.

Things in the tank have been going fairly well, all but the recent CO2 goof up I posted about. And the fact that I massively over-trimmed the plant AND simultaneously did a filter media change. So the tank has been recovering from that. But the operative word is recovering. But the big news is - NEW FISH! I love new fish!

In the first pic you can see two little 3″ (well almost 3″) reddish discus in the background. They are “3R2″s from Wayne Ng, a breeder/importer. My wife was jonesing for some red fish, and these were the best I could do. I got a total of five, and they are expensive little buggers.

I’ve actually had them for seven weeks. The first six were spent in quarantine. They were maybe 1/2″ smaller when I got them. They were healthy as can be. So after 6+ weeks I dumped them in the tank. But before I did that, I took my runt Cobalt out and put him in the quarantine - to see if it had any pathogens they couldn’t deal with, and visa versa. You can see the “runt” in the pic below behind one of the 3R2’s.

But to my dismay, I could not leave the runt in their tank. He is normally the most shy, skittish, beat-up upon fish in the tank. I guess that goes with being the runt. But once he got in with these little guys he decided he was BMOC, Hot Sh*t, Top Dog, and all that! He would NOT let my 3R2’s eat! As far as he was concerned, the food was HIS. Quantity did not matter.

So, knowing I was risking my whole tank - I dumped him back into it, so that the 3R2’s could get some food. About five days later i just tossed the 3R2’s in the main tank… since the cross-contamination test was effectively blown. I figured both populations looked healthy, so dump ‘em in and hope for the best.

As I stated up front, I got five new fish. But these pics only show two. Good reason… these fish are wicked skittish. Two of them will only come out when no one is around. One walks the line, but certainly will not come out for pictures. The two in the pics are pretty “up front”. But as I walked around with the camera they got nervous and retreated. That’s why they are in the background in the first pic. And from the difference you can see between the two pics, they darken up a lot when hiding near the plants.

Apparently 3R2’s are pretty skittish as a breeding line. But that said, my Cobalts hid in the plants for darn near a month when I first got them. So I think this is one of those “time will tell” sort of things.

My wife (and I - truth be told) wanted RED fish. Not orange. But orange is the color discus tend towards. If you see red discus - as far as I can tell - it’s either because they have been fed hormones, unnatural amounts of food supplements, or the tank light has been altered. Failing that, PhotoShop can always redden up your digital fish pics if needed.

I got these fish because I trusted the gentleman i bought them from - Al Sapetta - the owner of www.simplydiscus.com. Al’s a stand-up guy, and he knew my wife wanted red - and he knew of the natural orange tendencies of discus - and he recommended these fish. That is good enough for me.

I’m feeding them frozen blood worms, Tetra Color Bits (now renamed something like Color Granules) and a little bit of NaturalRose red color enhancer. So yes, I’m cheating. But not so much that it jeopardizes the health of the fish. Problem is, my other fish are eating it too! So if my blue Cobalts start looking purple, you’ll know why! LOL

More about the tank itself soon. But all is fairly well. But not perfect. Otherwise… why post?

PS - I forgot to mention! That darned runt is a runt BECAUSE he won’t eat Tetra Color Bits. All the other fish do - they got big, and he didn’t. Well, while bullying my 3R2’s he started eating the Color Bits, aparently just to spite them. WELL… since putting him back in the main tank he has participated heartily in the multiple Color Bit feedings and has grown VISIBLY in just one week. Sounds unbelievable, I know. But true.

Will post an irrelevent pic taken on my iPhone in the hopes that picture posting will work too.

Nature Aquarium World

by Takashi Amano

ISBN: 0-7938-0089-7

If there ever was a book that changed the face of a hobby, I suspect this is it. Published in a large 9.5″ x 12.5″ format, it is a gorgeous photographic collection of aquatic plants, artfully aquascaped, in a great “coffee table” sized book. The plant layouts are breathtaking, but it is the photography that really makes this book come alive. And that’s no surprise, as at the time of the writing of this book, the author Takashi Amano had spent most of his career as a photographer. The book was published in 1996 - quite a while ago - and much has changed since then. Mr. Amano has since spawned a mini-empire of premium planted aquarium products under the Aqua Design Amano (ADA) brand. This was his first major book available in English, and it remains a classic today.

People that stick with the aquatic plant hobby do it for a number of reasons. But I think we all begin for the same reason… because at some point we all saw a planted tank that took our breath away. And we wanted to do the same thing. So after perusing this book anyone would have to wonder, “How many people started their aquatic plant hobby because of this book?”

It is an inspiration.

In this book Mr. Amano shows his “Nature Aquarium” style, a significant departure from the previously dominant “Dutch” aquascapes. He throws out the old style of neatly ordered avenues and rows of plants, and introduces a less ordered, but still artfully balanced arrangements of plants. The practiced eye will notice the liberal use of Riccia fluitans as a foreground plant, and even Cardinia japonica shrimp for algae control. Though you do have to look, and know what to look for, because surprisingly the book provides scant information about the flora or fauna in his aquascapes.

There are over 60 separate aquascapes presented, many with multiple camera angles and two page spreads. And most do have a good bit of information about them:

• Tank size
• Lighting watts
• Filter type
• Substrate
• CO2 supply rate
• Water change frequency and volume
• Temperature
• pH
• Total Hardness (GH)
• Carbonate Hardness (KH)
• Nitrite PPM
• Nitrate PPM
• CO2 PPM
• O2 PPM

But the book is not limited to pictures of beautiful aquariums. It provides a primer on use of the “Golden section” and basic aqascaping layouts.  There is good treatment of driftwood selection and positioning, rock arrangement, and the use of both as anchors for plants (including Riccia). Also a bit of treatment on the correct tools for aquascaping.

There’s even a beginner level - though very good - treatment of the role of the critical components of a planted tank: CO2, biological filtration, lighting, substrate, fertilizer, and maintenance. There is even a bit of treatment of algae, snails, plant trimming, and diseases of aquatic plants.

With nearly 200 pages of beautiful photography, this is not - per se - a beginners book. Not in the sense that it provides all the technical detail you need to get started. But at the same time, all those technical books fall so far short in the inspiration department. And in that sense this is a beginners book, because it provide that in abundance. But even for the expert - and anyone in between - it’s one book that will be enjoyed each time you pull it out.

It could be argued that some of Amano’s subsequent books were better. I’ll review those too. But this one started it all. When I first laid hands on it, it was a major inspiration. I could barely put it down… turning page after page just wishing I could do the same, and deciding to try. Then flipping through it again and again, trying to decide which of the many aquascapes I was most inspired by. My personal favorites are on pages 16, 26, 60, and (most inspirational) page 90. What do those ’scapes look like?

Sorry. Get the book. But when you do, you won’t be sorry! Read it, be inspired by it, and go try it for yourself!

Well, as you can see, things are returning to normal after all the aquarium and fish excitement I’ve had over the last few weeks. From the pic below you can see the the fish seem fairly normal after my nearly killing them with a CO2 overdose last week. Two of the high bodied leopard discus actually spawned a couple of days ago. And a couple of the cobalt discus are doing their serious tail shimmy - let’s get it on - dances right now. I take breeding as a sign of health and well being. So I’m happy for that.

The tank is going through some changes. My CO2 tank ran dry, just as I was messing with the pH probe, and I shut off the lights and fert injections for a few days until I could get a replacement CO2 cylinder. So I’m leaving the ferts off for a little while, just to see how the tank (and algae) reacts.

In order to fight the algae problem, I’ve raised my lights by three inches, reduced my temperature to 82 (though lights and pumps still raise it a few degrees during the day), have reduced my total photo period to seven hours, and spit it up with a 90 minute siesta. So that’s three and a half hours light, hour and a half dark, and another three and a half hours light.

Lots of people will tell you that a siesta is bunk. It may be. But I also know my most algae free tanks has siesta. Coincidence? I wouldn’t know. But I know it won’t hurt.

The plants are growning back after my bone-headded huge trim. But with the ferts and lights dialed back, they are taking their time about it. But that’s OK. The algae’s kind of chilling too. And that’s the goal.

This is only an hour or two after my last post. WOW! What an hour!

After my prior diatribe of poor management of my tank, I went back to my tank to see my poor fish in BAD SHAPE!

This was a surprise! I’m used to happy, spawning fish. But I went back to the tank to see my fish laying on thier sides on the bottom! Or at the top of the tank, sucking air it the surface! Or worse… just floating randomly around in the current!

Can you say “total panic”? I can. And I did.

While this has never happened to me before, the first action is to correct the water! What went wrong can wait until later…

So I hooked a garden hose up to on of the Ocean Clears to get as much of the “bad” water out as quickly as possible. At the same time I whipped out the seldom used Python hose out of the closet, checked the tap water temperature, tossed the requisite amount of Seachem Prime in the tank, and started blasting tap water into the tank as the old stuff drained.

After a while it was clear that the water level was not changing quickly. So I shut off the new water, and just let the bad water drain. By the time it got to about 15% normal water volume. I stopped draining, and commenced fill only.

The tank is about 1/2 filled now, and many of the fish are swimming somewhat normally. At least they don’t act as if they are dying. But what the total impact is only time will tell. I guess I’ll finish this filling up, confirm that my water parameters are OK, and go to bed. It’s after midnight now.

Hopefully in the morning I will see a tank full of recovering fish. I don’t want to contemplate the alternative. I’ve had these fish a few years now, and until tonight I did not realize how great the attachment was. My wife even came down from her slumber, just to check to see - in hopes that everything would be OK.

I guess we all love these fish.

I’ll let you know the outcome as soon as I know. But for now - and figuring this out has NOT been the immediate priority - it appears that as I was diagnosing the performance of my pH probes, I forgot to turn off the CO2 injection. So somewhere along the line I stuck a pH probe in some 7.01 solution for testing, and the CO2 injection went wild trying to bring the pH down. When in actual fact the tank pH was fine, but the 7.01 solution I was testing caused the CO2 injection to go wild, and start a completely avoidable pH crash.

I cannot believe I was so stupid. But it looks like I was.

Tomorrow we will see the impact. Time for bed now. I hope the fish will be OK.

Well, every once in a while if you highly automate your tanks, you will dip your toe into the cold, cold waters or highly automated hell. Welcome in! I’m there right now, and going for a swim…

My lack of posting for a couple of weeks is not for lack or desire. Nor has it been because the tank looks like crap, and I’m just ashamed to show it to you. No. The tank DOES look like crap. And I AM ashamed. But honesty and candor require that I show it to you. But I don’t have time now to deal with picture taking, Photoshop, and all that hoowie. But I’m happy to tell you about the tank.

A few weeks ago I was agonizing over the fact that I let the plants go too long without trimming. And that the deep trimming that neglect necessitated was a really bad bedfellow with the fact that I needed to change a filter. Well it gets worse…

I’ve got a pH controller, and a probe for it that I have mounted in-line, so it is perpetually sampling my water for pH and adjusting CO2 injection accordingly. This particular pH probe - Lab grade from Neptune Systems - was both expensive, and also WORTH it because it has been humming along for almost a year without any significant deviation from my other pH meters. In other words, while the probe vendors recommend calibration on a VERY regular basis (say monthly if you are lazy like me) this little puppy has been RIGHT on target for months on end. And being human, I’ve been ignoring it… as if it would be correct forever.

Well the deep algae on every surface in my tank caused me to quickly surmise that something FUNDAMENTAL was wrong. And at the very least, it was my pH readings, and subsequent lack of CO2 injection.

Now that does not mean that I did not cut my biofilter back too far. I did. A major trim of plants coupled with  a massive plant trim was pure foolishness. But following this up with too little CO2 because of an out-of-calibraton probe was just stupid.

So, my tank looks like crap. Pics to follow soon.

That said, I don’t have a lot of progress to talk about. Nor pics to show you. My extra time - for what little there has been, has been consumed with stupid and time-consuming scraping the sides of the tank to clean the MASSIVE quantities of GDA, and trimming the RIDICULOUS amount of plant leaves of the same affliction. All in all, between the trimming, tank cleaning, and pH probe testing, I’d guess that I’ve wasted AT LEAST 8 hours on this crap.

So much for a low-maintenance planted discus tank.

Will post much more later after I dig myself out of planted discus tank hell.

Cheers - Steve

A couple of weeks ago I posted saying I wasn’t going to trim my plants. Big mistake.

The hygro was growing out of the top, and was long overdue for a trim. Unfortunately I let it get too tall - too leggy. So when I cut it last week, I cut it way back. But the leaves that were exposed by that process were too old. When they were exposed to the direct light this week GSA set up on them badly.

That was made worse by the fact that I spent weeks without cleaning the GDA off the sides and let it get too bad. I had it where I could do a quick scrape every few days and the tank was fine. But by waiting weeks it got thick, and when I cleaned it it went all over the tank. Including those old leaves on the hygro. And it hit the wysteria pretty hard too. And because I let it get so out of hand before I cleaned it, it was unusually thick on the tank walls by the end of the week.

All this might have been avoided if I hadn’t neglected regular maintenance.

But I replaced the filter media on one of my OceanClears. Big mistake after a huge trim. The trim removes biomass, and the filter change took out half of my bio-filtration too, Stupid. But I did it. I wonder how long I have to be in this hobby before I stop making newbie mistakes?

So I ripped all the stems out, and the hygro, and cut it way, way back. And I removed the Ludwigia repens too. I hated to do that - I love that plant. But it’s getting warm in the summer weather - 85 degrees in the tank every afternoon - and it is just not dealing with the heat. All its old growth is algae covered, so it’s better out of the tank.

What went back in the tank was only 1/3 the plant mass of what came out. Now my tank has precious little biomass. That’s potential trouble. So I’m anxious to see what this week is going to bring.

Live and learn I guess.

Setting Expectations

First, if you’ve been looking at Amano books, then you need to be aware… he usually has all sorts of equipment in hist tanks. He just removes it for pictures. But that doesn’t mean that you have to. And if you look at at The Inspired Aquarium by the Senske brothers, there too you won’t see equipment. But that’s partly because their clients have the money to hide equipment with custom furnishings.

I can’t afford that. And if you can’t either, don’t despair. With a bit of work, and a modest investment, you can get a lot of stuff out of your tank.

The Culprits

Let’s tick off the big offenders for planted tanks. Much of this will apply to fish only freshwater, and to a very limited extent saltwater tanks. The most common type of equipment we see are: water outflow tubing, Water returns, air stones, air hoses, HOB (hang on back) equipment, standpipes, overflows, pH probes, CO2 diffusers, CO2 drop checkers, thermometers, heaters, float switches, lights, UV filters, HOB filters, and of course, all the electrical cords, gas and water tubing that stuff needs to work, all hanging over the sides of the tank.

Approaches

There are a number of ways to tackle this problem.

Obfuscation

What? Hide the stuff. That’s the most common method, and a great compromise. I’ve got an air stone in my tank, and it’s hidden in plants. You’d be hard pressed to see the stone itself. The bigger trick is hiding the air hose - especially outside of the tank. Probes, like for pH or temperature have the same problem.

Camouflage

Or put another way - hiding in plain sight. That is what Amano does. Almost all of his equipment is clear glass or plastic - including is beautiful inflow “lily” pipes. I’ve done this myself, and the only real downside is that it requires a lot of manual labor to keep that glass or clear plastic clear. They are algae magnets, and it will require a time investment to keep it looking nice.

Another way is similar colors. I made a compromise in my tank - I wanted water flowing back into it at the top. Since water is leaving through the bottom, this would help circulation. But that meant either return tubes coming up through the bottom of the tank, or typical returns over the side. I chose the latter knowing I could get black returns - which fade visibly in front of my tank’s black background. Black returns would have faded too - of course - but like clear glass, everything gathers some algae, and I thought eliminating that tube coming up from the bottom would be the better path. I only have a slightly greenish black return flange at the top of the tank rather than that sitting on top of an also slightly greenish tube coming up from the bottom.

Removal

This is the big winner for hiding equipment. All kind of stuff can be pulled out if you are willing to do the work and go to some expense. There are a number of excellent options for removing that equipment.

Sumps

And many people will say that you can’t have a sump with a planted tank - that all your CO2 will outgass. Well if that is a concern of yours, just swing over to plantedtank.net and do a search on “sump”. You’ll find these can work very well with plants.

Though I’ve never had one personally, they are clearly great ways to hide stuff - not to mention other benefits. With a sump you can hide heaters, drop checkers, pH and temperature probes, fertilization injection lines, CO2 adding equipment and more.

In line equipment

If you don’t want a sump, much of that same equipment can be put in line if you have closed loop filtration. If you have a Hang on Back (HOB) filter, replace it with a canister you can stick in the stand. In my tank I’ve got heaters in line, UV filtration, CO2 injection, pH and temperature sensing, fertilization injection, and even tank draining and tank filling hardware.

Conclusion

Take a look at my plumbing diagram to see how some of this can be plumbed. And soon I’ll post on my in-line drain/fill, in-line CO2 injection, and in-line pH and temperature probes. With a bit of research, from info here and as can be found in the forums I’ve pointed to in my Links page, you can find out all you need to get a great deal of equipment out of your tanks and hidden from view, so your friends and family can see that they are really interested in - your plants and fish!

But truth be told, I’m not happy with the response times of this site at any time. When you click on anything, it just takes TOO long to fully paint the new page IMO.

I’ve been able to identify a minor (meaning cheap) upgrade that might improve things a bit. Hard to tell if it matters yet, as it requires a DNS change propagation. So I should know tomorrow.

But either way, if you are frustrated in your access to this site due to slow response times, please do let me know. You can click on the Contact tab on top to see ways to let me know.

Thanks - Steve

Why is it that aquarium hobbyists have such an eye for beauty, will often sit for hours enthralled by the lovely spectacle of their fish or plants or inverts, but somehow develop an apparently blind eye to all the crap in their tanks?

I don’t get it.

Even many pets shops are guilty of this - some “Mom and Pop”s can be the worst! You walk in and see beautiful, healthy fish, but the distraction of tubes, and hoses, and pumps, heater (and gosh-knows what other equipment!) sitting in, hanging on, and cluttered near the tank is enough to make anyone think twice about owning an aquarium.

On a recent reality TV show the lead moderator was trying to tell a contestant that he had come up with a grotesque (very, very weird) design, but also to explain to the contestant how it happened. He cleverly said,

“You know how you go in the monkey house at the zoo, and say - WOW, this stinks! But you really want to see the monkeys, so you stick it out. Pretty soon you are so amused by the monkeys, and have been walking around in the monkey house for so long, that you barely notice the smell. Well friend, you are LIVING in the monkey house!“

The contestant couldn’t even see the obvious any more - he’d been doing weird designs too long to be aware of how “different” they were anymore. And as soon as I heard that I thought,

“Wow! Many aquarium hobbyists are the same way about the equipment in and around their tanks.“

They just don’t see it anymore.

And it matters. Even if you don’t think you notice it, you do. Don’t believe me? Go pick up any book by Takashi Amano. After you get finished “oooh’ing” and “aaahhh’ing” over his gorgeous tanks, please consider this - there is no equipment to be seen. Or go pick up the Senskes’ book - The Inspired Aquarium. Simply gorgeous tanks. And in books by either of those authors (with rare exception), in and around their tanks you will see nary a wire, not a cord, not a pump, NOTHING to be found. Just fish, plants and water. Now that’s not all there is to making a beautiful tank. Far from it. But it is an ESSENTIAL element to achieving visually appealing aquatic design.

Now if you are completely self satisfied in your hobby, and take no value in what other people think about the aesthetics of your aquatic creations, then by all means - please ignore everything I’ve said. Your own willingness to put up with equipment, or your ability to ignore it, should be your only limitation. I’m sorry to have wasted your time - this does not apply to you.

But if you do care about what other people think, then this is something you might want to pay attention to. All most people want to see is water, plants, and animals. Anything else just blows the illusion of witnessing a little container of aquatic nature.

I’ll start a post soon to tell you how you can do this, if you are so inclined. It’s work. And compromises are almost inevitable. But there’s often room for significant improvement, if you try.

</rant>

Well, the Green Dust Algae got pretty nasty. I hadn’t touched the tank in weeks, and it looked like it, so I broke down Friday nite and cleaned it. There was so much GDA that after scraping it off gave the water a strong green tint. So I did an 80% water change too, just to get most of it out. And I’m still having trouble with some kind of green algae growing on the sand. So I gravel vacuumed up the top 1/2″ or so, Chloroxed it, and put it back.

I’ll have to go back and check my records I think it had been three weeks since I touched the tank. And doing so created a maintenance effort that was probably 3 hours in total. A good bit of work I’m afraid. Or, I suppose you could say 1 hour a week for 180 gallon aquarium isn’t too bad. Especially with plants and discus.

I obviously trimmed the plants while I was at it. It felt like a pound or two of trimmings were pulled out. Tank looks better now though.

These photos really look aweful. The depth of field - or rather lack thereof - makes the tank look flat. I need to get a better camera, because I can tell you these boring, unidimensional pictures, just don’t show what the tank looks like in real life… where you can see the layers of depth. It also makes the fish look like they’ve got no room, when in actual fact they’ve to all kinds of room. So one day, a new camera. But for now, here’s a few pics of my fish.

I’ve got two types of discus, Cobalts and High-bodied Leopards. Both sets purchased from Dan at Gulf Coast Discus. If you look hard, or click on on of the pics to pull up a larger shot, you can see that one of the Leopard’s tails is a bit raggedy. I’ve got two fish that get beat up by the other fish. The ragged tailed Leopard, and my runt Cobalt. I’m not sure the runt can be seen in these pics - he’s hanging to the background where it is safe.

Anyway, here’s some pics.

In a prior post I provided an explanation of the plumbing in the stand under my Son of Kahuna aquarium. But a lot of it did not really make sense (like the various solenoids) without a corresponding electrical diagram. So here it is. Here’s a link to the plumbing post. As you go through this diagram, sometimes it may be helpful to refer back to that.

The diagram above documents my electrical wiring. Clicking on it should bring up a larger, more usable picture. While there may be a lot of wires, it’s actually fairly simple. In fact, getting stuff to work was easy. But managing all those wires in the stand (where do you put all the excess wire?) wound up as a challenge in setting up the stand. But I think I took care of it. I’ll do a “physical stand” post later where I show how I dealt with that and other physical challenges.

Objectives

1. I wanted it to be secure and reliable (no loose connections)
2. I wanted it to be manageable (I’ll show that in the physical stand post)
3. I wanted it all controlled by a single unit

Electrical Overview

Looking in the diagram you can see at on the left a Neptune Systems AquaController III (AC III). This simple device controls most of what is running in my stand. It can be controlled, or “programmed”, with the little buttons on front. But it also has a web server in it that displays web pages that you can control it from. That’s my preferred method of managing the AC III’s settings. But that requires that it be hooked up to an Ethernet network. I’ll get to that…

The power itself in the stand is simple. I’ve got a single multi-outlet powerstrip plugged into the wall. Everything that is not turned on and off by the AC III plugs into that. That list is the WiFi access point, three little halogen lights inside the stand (for illumination of electrical and plumbing equipment), and a ground probe. That ground probe is mounted in my plumbing (always wet) to capture any stray electrical current - if any. And finally, the AquaController’s Direct Connect 8’s (DC8) are not turned on/off. They are “on” all the time.

The DC8’s are really simple. They have a proprietary control cable that plugs into the AC III. Or rather one plugs into the AC III, and the 2^nd DC8 is daisy-chained to the first one. The AC III individually controls each power outlet on the DC8’s sending control signals over that proprietary wire to turn the power to each individual plug on, or off, as needed.

The things that are turned on and off by the AC III all plug into a DC8. And the sockets are really solid - they grip a plug really tightly. Nothing is going to fall out accidentally.

Controlled Devices:

Lights

Turn on and off a little after sunset, and a little after sundown. The AC III would allow a normal “turn on at this time, off at that time” sort of programming, but it also understands seasonal variations in day lengths, and allows small incremental changes based on season.

Primary Pump

In my plumbing diagram you can see that this pump is on a filtration loop that has a lot of other devices on it, like all three heaters, CO2, UV and more. So I’ve got the AC III set up so that if this pump is turned off, then the AC III knows to turn all that other stuff off too without being specifically told to do so.

Secondary Pump

My pumps add some heat to the water, so during the warmest parts of the day, I have the AC III turn this on and off in 15 minute and 1 hour 45 minute cycles - on for a little while, then off for almost two hours.

Air Pump

Kind of a waste of a control slot really, as I usually leave it on all the time. But the option to control it is there if I need it.

Drain Solenoid

Each night the AC III turns this on three times for about an hour. In my plumbing diagram you can see where this will slowly drain water from the tank. This solenoid is normally-closed (NC) so if I lose power, no water is lost.

Fill Solenoid

After each drain cycle, the AC III turns this solenoid on to fill the tank. Again, check the plumbing diagram. The water is filtered for chlorine and particulates. And like the drain solenoid, if I lose power this shuts off. No power, no AC III controlling it, no tank filling.

CO2 Solenoid

The AC III is also a pH controller. So it has a pH probe plugged into it (see top of diagram). Based on the detected pH of the water, it turns the CO2 on and off, keeping the tank pretty close to my defined sweet spot for CO2 ppm all the time. And it also prevents end-of-tank-dumps, if you are familiar with those.

UV Filter

I fluctuate between loving this and thinking it masks problems. So sometimes it’s on all the time. Sometimes it’s on only a little, and sometimes none. Either way, it’s controlled.

Heaters 1,2 &3

The AC III is also a temperature controller, and I let it control the heaters. There is a temperature probe connected to the AC III (see top of diagram). When the temp gets a shade too cold, the 1^st heater kicks in. If it gets ½ degree colder than that the second heater kicks in. And in the winter time when my fill cycle kicks in at night - I live in New England - the water is cold, and it drops a full degree less than optimal temp, and the 3^rd heater kicks in. Just as the AC III knows length of day depending on season, it understands seasonal temperature fluctuations. It’s probably unnecessary, but rather than just setting it at a particular optimal temperature, I let it float up and down a degree or two over the months, depending on time of year. The heaters themselves have thermostats on them (most do), and I have them set for a little warmer than the the warmest the AC III will ever heat that water. That way, if something happens to the AC III, they still will shut off before it gets too warm. And no one heater can over heat the tank, so a single one getting stuck in the on position is a problem - should it ever happen - but not a crisis.

Fertilizer Pumps 1, 2, & 3

The AC III turns on peristaltic fert pumps as needed, for the programmed duration. See my plumbing diagram for more info on these.

Other Devices:

Some things in my stand are not controlled by the AC III, but work with it.

IO Breakout Box

This Neptune Systems expansion device allows non-AC III switches to be detected by the AC III.

Contact “Feed” Switch

This is a simple switch (little Radio Shack SPST contact variety) that I’ve got mounted to my stand door. It is connected by two thin wires to the IO Breakout Box, which is connected to the AC III. So if I hit the switche’s button - temporarily closing the circuit - the AC III detects it. I’ve got the AC III programmed to shut the two water pumps down for 10 minutes if that circuit is closed. So when I want to feed my fish without also scattering food all over the plants, I just tap that switch. The pumps shut down for ten minutes and then resume normal operation. A simple device that greatly reduces uneaten food in the tank.

Liquid Level Pressure Sensing Switch

This is just like the Contact “Feed” Switch, in that it is connected to the AC III the same way, and the AC III knows when the circuit is closed. But in the case of this switch - a World Magnetics PSF102 - it is plumbed to the bottom of the tank (see plumbing diagram) and can detect the height of the water column. It does not close the circuit - turn on - until the water reaches what I’ve set as maximum height. That is set with a little trim knob on the switch itself. When the AC III is filling the tank at night, and the water reaches that maximum height, the switch closes the circuit; the AC III detects it and is programmed to shut the Fill Solenoid off - to stop filling immediately. Even though the AC III might think it’s got a few more minutes left in the time it’s supposed to keep the Fill Solenoid on, if the Liquid Level Pressure Sensing Switch turns on, the fill process stops. And my floors stay dry! Never fails.

WiFi Access Point

As I indicated before, the AC III can be controlled by a little web site that is hosted right on the AC III. But you’ve got to have a network connection to it. I’ve got a small home network, and I could have just run an Ethernet cable to the AC III, and that would work just fine. But I didn’t want another cable running into the stand, so I connected it to a Linksys Access Point. That connects to my home wireless network, and thus connects to any device on my home network - wired or wireless. So I usually sit down at my PC to make changes to the AC III’s controls through the web interface. But I can do it on my iPhone’s web browser too. It would be possible to make the AC III’s web site available on the Internet, so I could control the stand anywhere in the world (that has Internet connectivity). But that requires getting Dynamic DNS (DDNS) up an working for my router, and I don’t want to be bothered. Many of you will know what I’m talking about. And if you don’t - bottom line, it can be done, but it’s a little bit of a PITA, and kludgy IMO.

Exceptions

The drawing is reasonably accurate. But not perfect. There are three aspects in my actual wiring that are not shown… to keep the diagram simple.

Plug-Switches

Sometimes you want something just turned on or off, independent of the AC III’s programming. The AC III calls this manual mode, but you have to go to a web browser, or mess around with the little buttons on the AC III (which I hate) to do that. Kind of a PITA if you just want to turn a pump off for a second. So I got some little devices - I’ll call plug-switches for lack of a better name - from Home Depot. It’s just an A/C socket with a rocker switch on top, and a plug in back. It’s one solid little plastic piece that you plug a controlled device (like a pump) into instead of directly into a DC8. Then you plug the little plug-switch into the DC8. So when you want to turn something off momentarily, just hit the rocker switch. Easier than buttons and more immediately gratifying than going to a web browser.

Stand Light Switch

The left side stand light A/C cord has a little Radio Shack SPDT contact switch that I wired into it. The switch is mounted just under the left side stand door. So when the door is opened, the light turns on. Simple. All of the electronics are mounted on the left side of the stand. So I get light when I need it - automatically.

Socket Expansion kit

The older DC8’s - like mine - have a design flaw. It’s been corrected in current models, but these cannot turn a device off if its current is too low. One of my fert pumps draws very little current, so the DC8 can turn it on, but not off. A recipe for disaster! Fortunately there is an easy solution - the Neptune Systems Socket Expansion kit. This is like a little miniature 2-socket power strip. It plugs into the DC8 and into the normal power strip. It senses when the DC8 has turned it on or off, and draws power from the power strip as needed. And my fert pump is plugged into that. And just in case you noticed… yes, that takes more sockets on the power strip than I’m showing. My diagram drawing tool only has an 8-plug strip. My power strip has ten.

Fertilizer Pump 3

This is not actually installed. It’s sitting on a shelf, waiting to be bolted in if I ever need it. But it is planned in - the plumbing and electrical is ready - so it will be easy.

Conclusion

With all this planning, there is one MAJOR mistake in this wiring. Have you seen it? My powerstrip is not plugged into a GFI outlet! I forgot about GFI as I was setting up the stand, and with 180g of water over it, I’m not exactly able to slide the stand out to install a GFI plug now. So I bought a big, cranking 15 amp GFI cord. I plugged the powerstrip into the GFI cord, and the GFI cord into the wall socket. But every time the HQI lights turn on the d*mn thing trips. That’s no good. I’m not sure if I’m running into an amperage problem, or something else. HQI ballasts can put out some funky line noise. So this is an area that I’m going to have to research because I really need to get GFI on that circuit.

With the exception that one major oversight, this all works very well. If I lose power, the AC III recovers very gracefully. I never exceed the capacity of our home wiring, and it all works like a charm. I hope this example is helpful to you in your own planning exercises. Setting it up was certainly fun for me!

I’m tired of cleaning green dust algae. Tired of trimming plants. So I’m taking a break from maintenance this week.

Usually I’ll clean the tank on a Friday evening if we don’t go out. Or Saturday afternoon/evening if we do. But last night we didn’t go out, and I was tired. Didn’t feel like farting around with the tank. And this afternoon we are going to the SimplyDiscus.Com 2008 Northeast Meeting and Cookout. So it won’t get cleaned then. I’m sure that tomorrow I’ll feel compelled to clean. But I’m not doing it on schedule.

Actually it didn’t get cleaned last week either. So the plants have been at least two weeks without a trim. So some old leaves are getting algae - that’s natural. Others are rotting. Natural too. But that’s why regular maintenance is required.

And the green dust algae (GDA) is getting bad in some places. Here’s a pic. Not very good, and clicking brings up a larger one. In this you can see that the GDA really does need attention. And the crypts need old leaves trimmed off.

I chose this pic because it reminded me of something disconcerting this week…

Earlier this week I came in to feed the fish one morning, and there was a bunch of foam on the surface of the tank, up against the tank wall. Uh oh. Looks like protein film. Hmmmm. I wonder what died?

All the discus were there. But a couple of days ago I noticed that one or two of my cockatoo dwarf cichlids seem to be missing. I had four males and two females. This pic is a typical feeding shot. When I drop in frozen blood worms everybody comes out of the bushes in a hurry! Dwarf ciclids, corys, biota striata (zebra loaches), and ghost shrimp. They all love bloodworms. But now, no more than two or three male cockatoo dwarfs. At least one is gone. If I can get them to hold still long enough maybe I can count.

I’m not really up on these fish… I suppose one or two could be guarding a brood. I’ve got breeding caves hidden in the plants. I wouldn’t know. I just hate to think that one or two died. They were young, and apparently healthy. I quarantined them for almost six weeks, and hit them with all sorts of prophylactic meds. If that didn’t kill them, I’m concerned that tank conditions would.

But it has been hot this week. The tank temps have been climbing as high as 85-86 degrees F every afternoon. Maybe it’s time to turn on the air conditioners and bring the ambient temperature in the room down a bit. It’s definitely killing my Ludwigia repens. Could be giving my poor cockatoo dwarf cichlids a hard time too.

And speaking of hard times… my favorite plant forum plantedtank.net has been down for two days. And I notice that aquaticplantcentral.com is down for repairs. I wonder that there has been another attack on aquatic plant sites? Hope not. And I hope that whoever it is that does that discovers in a nasty way that there is karma in the universe, and that what goes around comes around. But mostly I hope everything is ok.

This confusing looking jumble of tubing and equipment is a graphical representation of the plumbing in my stand. Clicking the picture should bring up a much more legible, larger diagram.

I have to begin with a disclaimer. This is not your typical planted aquarium plumbing layout. It’s extreme. IMO one of the highest expressions of the hobby is a “low tech” tank with little-to-no plumbing at all. This is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Even “high tech” tanks are almost always less technical than this. I went to extremes deliberately because I had a number of goals that I wanted to accomplish, and I wanted to do everything reasonably possible to accomplish them all:

1. Remove as much equipment out of the tank as was reasonably possible
   I’ve removed heaters, pH probes, temp probes, and even eliminated outflows from the tank by having water leave the tank through bulkheads in the bottom.
2. Automate water changes
   There is a simple system to let water drain from the tank automatically, and a separate fill system that fills and tops off the tank again every night. This is done without having a sump.
3. Heat a lot of water fast
   I live in the Northeast, and filling the tank with tapwater in the winter will give discus a nasty chill without being able to throw a lot of heating watts at the tank quickly.
4. Accommodate changes easily
   The excessive use of PVC unions allows me to remove most any piece fairly easily… just unscrew the union at either end and pull it out. It’s also worth noting that I always put the small half of every union 2-piece pair on the downstream end of each piece of equipment. That way when I create any replacement piece it only takes 1 union (2 halves) and I know which end goes where - every time.
5. Provide some redundancy
   If you look you will see that there are two filtration loops. The tank can run for a limited time on either one of the two. While a lot of things are only on one loop (UV, heat, and CO2 injection), temporarily dropping a heater in the tank, delaying, water changes, and adding CO2 though Seachem Excel will allow running without that loop for enough days to repair any problem without any real issue. Or, worst case in a pump problem, I can swap out the two pumps since they are virtually identical.
6. Make it bullet proof
   There are almost no slip fitted flexible tubes for the filtration loops. It’s all threaded PVC. And it’s all firmly attached to the stand. No floppy wires or tubes in the main plumbing. There are some slip fitted flexible tubing for things like the fill and drain systems. But that tubing is such a small diameter that if any mishap did ever occur, any leak would be slow. And BTW, as of this writing this plumbing has been in place for a year and never leaked a drop… even though the cat and the ferret both think of this jumble as their personal playground.
7. Dose liquid ferts automatically
   This diagram does not show the electronic controller that turns the fert pumps on and off each day. But at least it shows how the liquid fertilizer is plumbed.
8. Be flexible
   The many ball valves allow me to re-route water flows when things are being worked on.
9. Keep everything in the stand
   There are a few obvious exceptions, like lights and the hidden tubes that take waste water to the drain and bring freshwater to the tank. Those can’t be in the stand. But pretty much everything else is.

This diagram does not detail the electrical system, which drives everything. You can find that tank electrical diagram here. Obviously I’ve got a lot of solenoids (CO2, drain, fill, ferts) that have to be controlled by some electrical controller. Same goes for heat. So making complete sense of this requires a review of that diagram too. This is just plumbing.

It may look confusing, but it’s really just a few simple systems.

Diagram Explanation

I’m going to try to explain this in the order that the water flows through the system. It’s not going to make much sense though without a good diagram, so if you haven’t done so already, please click on the diagram above and walk through this explanation as you refer back to the diagram. It all begins with water in the tank. But the tank is not shown. Instead…

Outflow Manifold

Water flows out of the tank through three bulkhead holes in the bottom of the tank. This is technically 50% more capacity for water flowing out than needed, but it makes sure the pumps are not restricted by too little water. All three of these outflows come into a single manifold constructed out of four and five way PVC pipes. The water leaves this DIY manifold in two ways. One flows to the primary pump loop which has most of the filtration, and the other to the secondary loop which only has redundant bio-mechanical filtration. By pulling water into this manifold a modicum of water mixing occurs, which is good for CO2, fert, warm water distribution, and in-line sensing.

In-line Sensing

While the water is in the manifold it runs past an in-line mounted pH sensor. This sensor is plugged into a controller that turns the CO2 on and off depending on the pH. Likewise it runs by a temp controller, which in turn is connected to a controller that turns the various heaters on and off depending on the water temp. And finally there is a ground probe, plugged into the home A/C ground to help control any stray electrical current - should such exist within the tank.

Tank Fill

It seems odd to discuss tank filling before talking about draining first, but the fill water comes into the manifold, so I’ll cover it here. The household water is connected to the inflow manifold, but not before it runs through two carbon filters and a solenoid. The solenoid is normally closed, so water cannot flow in if power is lost. But a controller turns the solenoid on periodically and lets fresh water flow in. Before it flows in though, the water first flows through a 10 micron carbon filter, which strips out chlorine from the water along with large particulates. Then it flows though a 2 micron carbon filter that strips out any last remnants of chlorine. These two filters help ensure that no particles clog the solenoid and keep it from closing.

Pumps

As mentioned before, once water exits the manifold it goes to one of two directions. Each goes to a pump. I think these are identical. They have the same specs and look identical. They are wicked quiet, but they vibrate a lot and require serious vibration damping in their mounting. And they also contribute heat to the water. But for discus that’s not too much of a problem.

Bio/Mechanical Filtration

The Ocean Clear filters that come after the pumps are great. They filter so well that changing/cleaning media only has do be done every 4-6 months. And their 50 micro filters keep the water crystal clear. I love that. Plus they provide additional biological filtration. One of these filters goes nearly straight back to the tank. So I’ll ignore that path, but will talk about the primary filtration loop (on the bottom of the diagram) that runs the water through all the other equipment.

Tank Drain

Like the fill system, this is also controlled by a solenoid. That normally closed solenoid will not let any water drain out unless it is powered on. So, again, no water is lost in a power failure. The same controller that turns the fill solenoid on and off controls this too. It’s placed immediately after the filter so that any particulates that could clog the solenoid have been stripped out of the water.

Heating

Three separate 300 watt heaters allows the water to be heated up quickly. They are in-line mounted Pentair modules, horizontally mounted to fit in the stand. Water flows sequentially through them. It’s worth noting that they are turned on and off by the controller that senses temperature as detected by the temp probe in the manifold - before it gets to the heaters. If I tried use the thermostats on each heater, being in-line means the I would to set the 2nd and 3rd thermostats to not turn on until the water was really hot, because the water is being preheated by the heaters in front of it. By controlling them by a temp sensor in the “cool” side of the loop, I’m always detecting tank temps, allowing me to set the thermostats on the heaters at a reasonable temperature… one that will not fry the fish if one ever gets stuck in the on position.

Ultraviolet Filtration

After the heaters is a 25 watt UV. The flow rate on this filtration loop is slow enough to allow a UV of this wattage to toast pretty much anything unfortunate enough to flow through it.

CO2 Injection

Rather than normal CO2 injections, I’ve used Tom Barr’s suggestion of a Mazzei venturi to dissolve CO2 in the water flowing by. This requires having water flowing by at the correct speed, so the ball valve (#19) is used to control how much goes through the venturi vs. going around it. CO2 is regulated by the solenoid on the CO2 regulator. As I mentioned before, this turns on and off - allowing CO2 to be injected or not - depending on the pH level measured coming out of the tank by the pH probe in the outflow manifold.

Fertilizer Injection

Fert injection is controlled by two peristaltic pumps which are turned on for a few minutes a day by an electronic controller. Peristaltic pumps allow injection of very precise liquid fert quantities. And it being automatic makes daily maintenance a lot easier too - no dosing!

Inflow Manifold

This just consolidates the flow from both filtration paths, does a bit of water mixing and returns the water to the tank. The important thing is that depending on the needs of the aquascape, water can be directed to either side of the tank, or flowing more to one particular side if slow flow is needed on the other. Also, the ball valves allow either of the two flows to be excluded if one is having maintenance performed. And needless to say, the large check valves on the end of the stand plumbing - last thing before water goes back to the tank - prevents a backflow siphon of water from happening should I be performing maintenance. The inflows themselves do go into the tank, and that violates my first goal of removing as much equipment as possible. I made that compromise because having water come in the top of the tank, and exit the bottom creates great circulation. But I did have extra, unused, bulkhead holes drilled in the bottom of the tank, should I ever decide to remove that last bit of visible hardware and plumb my inflows through the bottom.

Tank Aeration

Over on the upper right side of the diagram is a bulkhead attached to an air pump. Though it does not show in the diagram, the upper side of the bulkhead in the tank has a slip nozzle with an air stone on it. Planted tank filtration typically don’t do much aeration, depending instead on the plants to provide oxygen to the water. But a tank full of discus is quite a bit different then your typical planted tank with a small school of tetras. I’m personally convinced that my discus seem so little stressed, in part, because I aerate my water day and night. Not enough to out-gas a lot of CO2. Just a little air. And the great thing about bringing the air though the bottom of the tank is that I don’t have air hoses coming into the tank. It’s all hidden.

Water Level Sensing

Just to the side of the aeration bulkhead hole in the diagram is the bulkhead for the water level sensor. This is simply a hole in the bottom of the tank with a tube under the bulkhead, which is connected to a water pressure sensor. In the process of doing the automatic fills of the tank, when the water reaches the proper height (depth and pressure), the sensor switches on and electrically signals the fill controller that the tank is full, and the controller shuts off the solenoid to stop filling the tank. This enables me to have automatic drain/fill cycles every night, knowing the tank will be filled to the correct height and I don’t have to have any unsightly things in the tank like float switches. But that fill process is on a timer just in case this puppy ever fails, it won’t keep filling for too long.

Closing

I know that some of these systems require a bit more information. This certainly does not explain how it all fits in the stand. I just finished an electrical diagram that helps fill in some of the gaps. And over time I’ll work up some individual - more detailed - explanations of the CO2 venturi, fert injection, and the drain/fill systems.

In closing, if this is interest of to you, then by all means swing by my Son of Kahuna thread over at Plantedtank.net, where I discuss this setup ad nauseam with other posters. Also a large number of people there have set up some wonderful alternative ways to accomplish many of the same things.

And a lot of what I have here - like the auto water change and massive heating - are primarily because I am keeping discus in this planted tank. So if you want to see wonderful discussions of how to keep discus in planted tanks, the best site I know is Simplydiscus.com. I’ve got a Son of Kahuna thread there to.

Finally it’s worth mentioning that I know of no better English speaking site for hard-core plumbing than Reefcentral.com. I don’t post there much since I’m not a reef-keeper. But they can answer tough aquarium plumbing questions like nobody’s business.

So pick a forum, and come say “hi”!

Well! The tank survived a year! No mishaps. No floods. No tank killing algae. Cool!

I would have posted sooner, but we have had house guests, and tank things had to wait.

Hardware

I had some work to do before I made it to the 1 year mark. I wanted to finish all my under the stand stuff. So I bolted down my second Ocean Clear filter that had been loose before. And I did a thing I had really been dreading… moving my water depth sensor.

I haven’t posted the technical details of my setup yet, but suffice to say I have an auto water change rig that does not require any floats or sensors in the tank. It detects a “full” condition with a water pressure switch in the stand that gets water through a bulkhead hole in the bottom of the tank. And so that little critters don’t crawl down the hole, in the tank it’s covered with a somewhat unsightly filter sponge. If you have noticed the patch of crypts to the front left of my tank, it’s there to hide the sponge.

Well I wanted to create an open area to the left of the tank, and that meant that I had to push those crypts further back and to the right a bit. But that exposed the sponge, so I had to unscrew it from the bulkhead, cap off the bulkhead, and screw it into a different, better hidden bulkhead. That’s a real PITA with a tank full of water and three inches of sand in the bottom of the tank. And none of that describes all the hardware I had to move under the tank. Anyway, maybe you can see why I procrastinated.

I’ve got a few additional changes to make, with the hardware waiting in the wings. But I don’t need any of it yet, so I figured there’s no harm in crossing the 1 year threshold without doing that too.

Now that the tank has been up a year, there are a number of long-term maintenance things to start doing. Like changing the carbon filters that strip the chlorine out of the water as I add it each night. And changing the UV filter light. And - though I don’t like the cost - the HQI hologen bulbs need to be changed. Drat! This is going to add up.

Fauna

Been a lot of changes this year in fish. My school of Green Neons (P. simulans) has lost a few fish. It’s getting pretty small now - no more that 30 I’d guess. And I recently added six juvenile cockatoo dwarf cichlids that are doing quite well. And my small school of Otocinculus catfish has gotten smaller. I think I’m down to less than 10. But that’s OK, they can be tough on discus sometimes.

But my shrimp are doing great. I’ve still got quite a few Amano’s. I’m guessing 25 or 30. They are hard to count in a planted tank. And I’ve got no idea how many of the orginal 100 ghost shrimp purchased for this tank are still around. But it’s a bunch. Every week I find a new one or two on the floor in front of the tank - or so it seems. But at that rate they should be almost all gone. But they aren’t and I don’t think they are breeding because I never see any juveniles. Either way, I’m glad they are still around because they are great at eating excess discus food.

And as for the discus, they are fine. Or at least I assume that since they are still breeding like rabbits. I have at least two pairs breeding every couple of weeks. Maybe three pairs. I have to admit I don’t pay much attention since all the eggs are toast in a tank full of neons, dwarf cichlids and shrimp. But knowing that they are breeding is my way of knowing they are reasonably healthy and stress free.

Flora

I’m going into the second year for this tank with something that I’m not really happy to call an aquascape. IMO it’s a little lousy looking - closer to what I refer to as JABOP, or Just A Bunch Of Plants. But I’m still working through the set of plants that will tolerate my ultra soft water and the warm water temps that discus need. And having somewhat low maintenance plants is also an important criteria they must all pass.

So another real aquascape is coming. But not yet. Crossing the 1 year mark I ripped out a lot, trimmed a lot, and moved a lot of plants around. So I’m letting things settle a month or so before I go messing with stuff. And just to manage expectations… my aquascapes are not set up to look good in pictures. They are set up to look good in person. For instance, the open area on the left is that way to attract and hold fish. The tanks right side is in a corner of the room. So that keeps fish closer to where the people watching them are. But it does not always make for the best looking aquascape in photos I’m afraid. Sorry.

Conclusion

It’s been a pretty good 1st year for the tank. Algae pretty much under control, even if it did take too long. Fish are fine, plants healthy, and that tank hardware pretty much installed and complete.

This next year I’m going to have to redouble my efforts to get this to a nice looking aquascape. I like a challenge, and that will certainly be one.

Spending time in aquatic plant forums, and watching people continuously ask “how much” with regard to macro dosing for a particular tank drives me nuts! People want to know the quantity of a fert that they should dose their tank. It doesn’t make me nuts so much because it is a bad question, but because so often it is the wrong question. And a very clear tradition exists in this hobby to answer all dosing questions by describing how much to dose. Problem is - of course - that it is usually a meaningless answer.

When someone describes a quantity of a macro fertilizer to dose, it ignores plant uptake rates and water replenishment rates. To say that your tank needs X grams (or teaspoons, or what ever measure you feel happy with) of KNO3 every other day completely ignores water change intervals. I’ve got discus, so I change water more frequently than is normal in the hobby. So while X grams may be enough for the average hobbyiest for a tank with size, plants and lights like mine, I’m going to need something more than X, because I’m flushing so much down the drain so frequently. Likewise, the same recommendation of X grams KNO3 completely ignores plant uptake rates. Some plants have dormancy periods, recent trimmings or placement in a tank will be a factor, as will the general health of the plants, not to mention light, CO2 or other limiting factors. Different tanks of the same exact size with identical lighting can absorb any given nutrient at wildly differing rates.

So to reccommend X amount of any nutrient does a disservice to someone needing to know how much to fertilize their tank. But there are important exceptions to this.

If you are dosing Tom Barr’s Estimative Index (EI), or any other method that ignores day-to-day nutrient levels within a tank, please ignore every thing I’ve said. EI is founded on the idea that you establish an amount - “X” if you will - of every needed nutrient that will be at least enough, if not more than enough, for the plants. Then you dose that amount regularly - knowing that your plants will alway have enough - though not knowing if they might have too much. Frequent and regular water changes insures that any nutrient buildups do not become extreme.

So if you are not dosing EI or a similar method, what should we ask with regard to dosing, if not “how much”?

We should ask “what’s my target level“!

Concentrations of nutrients in the water column - expressed in some meaningful way like Parts Per Million (ppm) - is the ideal way to communicate dosing requirements. And I say target level, because short of some form of perfect constant dosing mechanism, soon after you dose anything, some of it may already be consumed by your plants. You could have a ppm target, and even if you dose perfectly, that level is going to change soon. Let’s say you target 14 ppm for Nitrogen. Depending on your plants’ uptake rate the nitrates in your tank may fall to 12, 10, or even 0 (that would be hard though) by the end of the day. So if you knew that your tank’s uptake rate for nitrates was 4 ppm per day, you might target 14 ppm by dosing enough to make the tank 16 ppm. So the tank starts the day at 16 ppm but falls to 12 ppm over the course of the day. Your average worked out to 14 ppm - the level you were targeting.

Dosing to target levels requires a good understanding of your plants’ uptake rates. And that requires test kits. If you don’t want to deal with test kits, then you need an “ignore the level” method like EI. Go take a look at Tom Barr’s website and read all about it. Otherwise testing is required. And good record keeping too if you are ever going to understand your plants’ uptake rate. And it’s easy to understand those rates. Test after dosing, but before the lights come on, and test when the lights go off. The second test should show lower ppm’s. The difference is your daily uptake rate. If nitrates started the day at 16 ppm, and ended the day at 12 ppm, then 4 ppm is indeed your tank’s daily uptake rate for nitrates.

Once you know your uptake rates, and you know what level you want to target (do you want 14 ppm for nitrates?), then you can go figure out how much to dose. There are great websites out there that can help you with that. Fertilator on Aquatic Plant Central is one, and Chuck Gadd’s website is another. If you know what level (in ppm) a nutrient is in your tank, and you know what level you want it to be, these sites will calculate the “how much” question for you.

At this point some of you may be asking “But how do I find out what my target levels should be?” Well, that’s the 64 thousand dollar question, and I’ll not try to answer that here. But what I do hope, is when you get onto a forum or go to a web site to find out, please don’t ask “How much of X nutrient do I put in my tank?”

Ask “What should my target level for X nutrient be?” That will get you the answers that you really need.

And some of you might be thinking… “That’s fine for Nitrates and Phosphate, it’s easy to get cheap test kits for those. But not Potassium.” That’s true. Potassium kits are rather expensive. But once you know your uptake rate for Nitrates, you can assume that Potassium will be consumed at roughly the same rate. If it turns out to be more, and you aren’t dosing enough, you’ll see pin holes in the leaves of your plants. And if you are actually dosing a little too much, that’s fine for potassium - assuming you are doing regular water changes to keep the excess from getting out of control.

And some of you might also be thinking… “But why should I care about this?” Easy. I’ve already shown that asking “How much” leads to not really understanding the macro concentrations in your tank. And too little will starve your plants and algae will soon follow. And dosing too much will likewise lead to algae. Yes - I know many will say “EI” provides too much, and that doesn’t lead to algae. True. For some people in some tanks it doesn’t. But it does not work for everyone. I’m not sure why. I believe Tom Barr’s position on that is that if excess is leading to algae then something else is wrong, like not enough CO2. But I don’t believe that is always the case when EI does not work for someone. There are a whole lot of experienced, clever people out there that EI has not worked for. So I’m gonna stick with my belief that unless EI does work for you (and it just might), then too may nitrates or phosphates may lead to algae trouble in your planted tank.

On a final note… please notice that this entire rant is about not asking “how much” for macros. Not micros. Micro-nutrients are not easily managed by testing your water (yes - I’m including iron in that statement). For micros you have to ask “How much”, because you cannot reliably know concentrations or ppms.

</rant>