29 Gallon Journal

[qwikimpss]

I've had a 29 gallon tank that's been planted up and running for about a year and a half with mixed results. It is the standard U.S. 29 gallon dimensions (being a taller version of a 20 gallon). I run a 65 watt, 6,700k power compact and a 20 watt normal output florescent which gives me a total of 85 watts, so about 3.0 wpg (just a hair under). They are on a timer for four hours on, a two hour siesta, and four hours on.

My CO2 consists of two, two-liter soda bottles running to the same Hagen ladder through separate air lines (I rigged one up to run down the side of the ladder and used some aquarium silicone sealer to fix it in place).

I am attempting to start my estimative index dosing using the Seachem chemicals. I have, for my normal trace fertilizer, Flourish and then I bought the nitrogen, phosphate and potassium which got delivered earlier this week. An error with Greg Watson's website has taken $18.85 off of my debit card but not given me any chemicals from him. I will be calling on this upcoming Tuesday after the holiday.

In my tank I have Hygrophilia Polysperma, Hygrophilia stricta (at least that's what I believe it to be), Anubias nana, Cryptocoryne wendtii, some Vallisneria spiralis, and an Amazon sword.

OK, now that the quick run-down of the set up is done here are my water parameters as of 30 minutes ago:

PH: 7.0
GH: forgot to test it!
KH: 3 degrees
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: between 5 and 10 (the Seachem test kit I got is somewhat hard to read)
Phosphate: .05-.1 ppm (again, Seachem test kit but it is decidedly low)

My first issue right now as I see it is my low (9ppm) CO2, even WITH two bottles running! There are two reasons I can think of for this. I am currently running a Bio-Wheel, hang-on-back filter which does disturb the water's surface a bit, I think that maybe the minimal disturbance may be enough to be driving off my CO2 too fast. My other possibility is because of my tap water's low buffering capacity and also due to the fact that I don't add buffers to my bottle water. I'm thinking that the water in my CO2 bottles is dropping too low and causing the yeast to die off as fast or faster than they are reproducing. I was wondering if anyone here had any ideas or insight to this. I know several people on here have kept a pretty steady CO2 level at or around 30 ppm using two bottles on tanks larger than mine, I was curious about how they did it.

I will try to get some halfway decent pics and post them tomorrow or Monday.

 

[Liam]

You can just add some baking soda to the mixture as you have such a low KH and yeah a biowheel (I believe) breaks the surface of the water so Co2 will easily gass off.
Looking forward to the pics

 

[reiverix]

Yeah I would ditch the biowheel. Even in non CO2 aquariums I take them off and just rely on the filter media for hosting bacteria. The splish splash drives me nuts. You definitely want to cut down on surface agitation to improve your CO2 reading. Switching out one bottle each week will help you keep things more constant. I personally wouldn't worry with a KH of 3 degrees.

Any reason why you give the tank a two hour siesta?

 

[qwikimpss]

I'll try taking the Bio-Wheels off of the filter and run it that way for a few days to see how it responds. I'm making a few modifications to my ladder right now so I have one bottle running into the tank, that's all, no air stone or anything. Less than optimal but temporary. I give the tank a two hour siesta right now because, as you can see, it is LOADED with algae, so cutting down on the photo-period will *hopefully* keep it to a minimum and I also understand it can help CO2 levels to rebound a little bit...at least that's what I'm hoping for.

Here are some pics of the tank taken earlier tonight. Don't get your hopes up, right now the tank looks like crap, the only plants that are doing remotely well are my Amazon Sword and my Vallis.

This pic was taken a few months back, note the fullness of the hygro on the right. This is what it SHOULD look like!

A full tank shot, kinda lets you see the algae troubles I've gotten myself into lately. The Hygro is so leggy because the tank was running on a 20 watt light by itself for a month to month and a half.

Left side of the tank showing my Anubias, I really want to ditch this stuff. I like how it looks when it's not covered in algae. Even when the CO2 is running properly this stuff, for me anyway, is an algae magnet. I plan on replacing it very soon, will probably put it in my 55 gallon as I have a couple in there that are doing pretty well.

Another one showing the legginess of the hygro and the god-awfulness of the Anubias right now.

This is the right side of the tank (heater kinda sticks out a little bit huh?). Again, note the legginess of the hygo on this side. The crypts have, surprisingly, survived the low light over the past month, but that's about all they did, no growth, they did lose a lot of leaves. You can also see my lace leaf java fern. It used to be nice and big with healthy green colors. It has since turned into what you see here.

This one is a pretty good shot of my ram, love those colors. It also shows the algae, which I am unable to ID, spreading across the floor of the tank. Yes, it also shows the dirty eco-complete, for me it's a pain to vac because my siphon is a bit strong and if I really dig into the gravel to clean it I end up sucking it up, time to invest in a smaller one. I'm using a python as my gravel vac, I use it as a siphon and it works great for my 55 with larger gravel but the eco-complete doesn't have much weight to it.

Finally, for now, I wanted to add this one because not only does it show a little more of my algae haven but it is the ONLY decent picture I could get of my Sumo Loach. He is a very reclusive bugger, this is his territory and the only one allowed in and out of it without being chased away is the Blue Ram. All the others he runs off but does no harm.

 

[qwikimpss]

Last night I finished my modifications to my bubble ladder. I used some sealant to glue an airline down the side of it opposite the other airline coming down that's there from the factory. I also refilled one of the bottles and this time put in some baking soda, I was surprised at how fast it started to produce bubbles, only took about 20-30 minutes.....maybe baking soda helps? We'll see, time will tell.

 

[qwikimpss]

I'm still struggling to get my CO2 concentrations up in the tank. I refilled one yeast bottle but added baking soda and it's bubbling away happily, very impressed with the reaction I got. It's time to refill the other tonight so hopefully tomorrow I will be averaging a bubble every 2 seconds between the two of them.

I also hope to pick up a canister filter this weekend if I can find one I can afford. Probably a less-than-optimal Fluval. A lot of people don't like the Fluvals but I've had a little experience with them as my g/f's brother has one on his 75 gallon and I am impressed with the ease of maintenance, flow rate and media capacity. Plus they are a lot cheaper than an Eheim.

That should, while improving filtration, really cut down on surface disturbance so the CO2 should stick around a bit better!

 

[qwikimpss]

Well, I went out yesterday and bought my canister filter. An Eheim Ecco 2232. I loaded it up half with the new, Eheim filter material and half with the old filter cartridges I cut up to make them fit in there. I am also floating the old bio-wheels around in the tank to try and keep any ammonia to a minimum while the new filter gets established. I was surprised that the Eheim filter was just 10 bucks more than the Fluval 205 that I was going to pick up.

By getting the canister I also reduced my surface turbulence to zilch and man, did it work for the CO2 levels. Except it worked a little too well. Yesterday, after 3 hours of it being in there my PH dropped down to 6.4, which would have given me a great 36 ppm given my 3 degrees of KH. Then I checked it today and it had dropped down to 6.0!!!! 90ppm from just switching filters!!! I unscrewed the cap of one bottle and moved the filter output so it makes some turbulence now. I have yet to check the PH again yet but the CO2 can only go down really. Maybe one bottle is enough for me.

Amazingly, with 90 ppm, only one fish was really showing any signs of oxygen deprivation. It was my ram, and he wasn't really gasping as bad as some fish I've seen, just hanging near the top of the tank. My pencilfish, tetras, flying fox and loach were all doing fine, as were the gouramis but that doesn't surprise me since they are adapted to low-oxygen environments.

Here are my water stats as of 45 minutes ago:

PH: 6.0
GH: between 3 and 5 degrees
KH: 3 degrees
Ammonia: .5 ppm
Nitrite: .5 ppm
Nitrate: 5 ppm
Phosphate: .1 ppm
CO2: 90 ppm

So, it seems that once I figure out how to keep my CO2 a bit lower I'll be able to really start my EI dosing. It should be figured out by tomorrow.

 

[rockerBOO]

Amazing how the baking soda helped. I am going to redo my co2 set with a little baking soda in it, as it seems my water is really soft.

 

[qwikimpss]

It wasn't so much the baking soda. While it helped. What really did it was to eliminate the surface disturbance so the CO2 wasn't driven off.

 

[rockerBOO]

Yeah I have a bio-wheel now as well. So maybe i should upgrade .

Nice journal, keep it up . Hope soon you can get your plants to thrive. Maybe adding some new faster growing plants into the mix while the other ones fight off algae would be a good idea.

 

[dasmall1]

I, too, have a 29g with 2 2l bottles going to a ladder. I have 4.5wpg. It seems like u dont have many fast growers in there with ur medium-medium high lighting. Try adding more fast growers or not using the 20w bulb to keep your algea down. The CO2 will help, too.

 

[qwikimpss]

Well, I have both of the species of Hygro, which are fast growing stem plants, my Valis has been growing extremely fast and the sword plant is commonly called a fast grower, which it is, for the most part. I do need to kick the java ferns and anubias out of there tho. I plan on buying some rotala indica, hygrophilia difformis, pennywort, and probably some egeria densa. Hopefully I'll be able to order them this weekend. You guys are right, some better fast growing plants are needed now that I have my CO2 situation pretty much figured out. I'm just running one bottle which keeps my PH at 6.4 which gives me a cool 36 ppm, which is damn near ideal. I've started to dose my NPK and am trying to bring those levels up slowly.

 

[qwikimpss]

Last night I re-arranged the tank, out of necessity. I was sitting and watching TV after work last night at around midnight and I saw one of my dwarf gouramis dying, I scooped him out and while I was doing it I noticed that he had an eye removed. Someone sucked it out of his little head. After euthanizing (sp) him I had to sit and think about who could have done it. It certainly wasn't the tetras or penicilfish, the ram has never so much as nipped another fish and I have never noticed the flying fox being the slightest bit of aggressive. My sumo loach on the other hand had been a bit of a bully lately and a few days ago I notced many nipped and, on one pencilfish, half his tail fin is missing. I could only come to one conclusion that the loach was to blame (he did take care of the few pest snails I had in there which was a welcome suprise). Well, I don't know if anyone has ever tried to net a loach that didn't want to be caught but they are a pain, I uprooted and removed EVERY plant in my tank in an effort to get him out and even after everything was removed it STILL took me 45 minutes to take care of it. He's now sitting in my spare 29 gallon with some old filter material waiting until I can get him back to the LFS.

Took me 2 hours to net the little a**hole!

 

[nry]

My nerite snails keep my anubias (and everything else for that matter!) spotless from algae. They aren't too good at some of the straggly algae but my tank has been spotless since a week after they went in. Highly highly recommended from me!

 

[thejuice24]

Hey was reading through your post, just wondering how are the plants doing since all the changes?