Lfs Denied Refund On Garentee!

[Syphoniera]

Cheers, Bignose!
I know I'd never start another non-Walstad tank, apart from the (temporary) one I'm doing for a 'competition' cichlid (or, How I Wound Up With a Red Devil in My Bedroom) 10 gallon 'growout' (til June - not allowed one big enough to keep the little devil) tank, with plants that (I hope) can survive being dug up periodically.
And one of my Walstads is what I still think of as being grossly overstocked, with no problems.
They're amazing!

 

[theshadowinc]

I never thaught of this but damn I have my breeder set up and tested the water hehe and 0ammo/0nitrite/0nitrate damn i gonna take that water in lmao ~ I will make my mind up not to go back there again for buying fish we had another die this morning for some reason discus are doing fin same with other fish like abm really weird i think an internal parasite so out come the discuss again! Out come the discuss and treat them omg again! Don't know why there fishes are dropping like flies. Its to bad for the store its one of the biggest here where i am, won't give a name one of the little shops here i talked to the fish guy and he was surprized he actually learned something from me about planted tanks , I was looking for cheap media for my xp3 and was trying to find BioMax and at the time I was closer to that store and couldn't think of what they called it so I asked him what I was looking for and he helped me out not only that but we got talking and told him my stats of the tank I was doing up and what was gonig to be in it. I also told him about the heavy planted tank I had I dosed with excel and that I never did a cycle of the tank put fish in right away and none died no ammo/nitrite the next day althow i remember the nitrate was something like 60ppm <- but dosing patassium and other stuff I was dosing back then it was actually a false reading. Not only that with some of the fish I had in that tank he was surprized they all got along I had to explain the running room and also how heavy it was planted fish could hid very easy.

What do you think I should do try and explain to the store person about planted tank or just give water sample from my breed tank!

 

[Davo86]

What do you think I should do try and explain to the store person about planted tank or just give water sample from my breed tank!

take that sample in, along with the other dead fish, and don't mention the fact your wife has already been in once before,
(the staff will have most likely forgotten about the incident by now and even if they haven't its unlikely they will put 2 and 2 together)

Just say you brought these fish they've died and heres a sample of your water for them to test

 

[theshadowinc]

What do you think I should do try and explain to the store person about planted tank or just give water sample from my breed tank!

take that sample in, along with the other dead fish, and don't mention the fact your wife has already been in once before,
(the staff will have most likely forgotten about the incident by now and even if they haven't its unlikely they will put 2 and 2 together)

Just say you brought these fish they've died and heres a sample of your water for them to test

I have the fish in quartine right now we have to wait and see I don't think its going to last long its already on its side but gills still moving! If it makes the night I will be surprized.

 

[theshadowinc]

Thanks for all the information Bignose. Like I said, I don't know a whole lot about planted tanks but I am glad I learned that. I had always read that plants preferred to use nitrates as their only found source. I had no idea different plants used different stages of the nitrogen cycle as a food source. Great information Where these findings relatively new, because I have never heard of them before...


On another note, I have heard about a self sustaining tank before which seems similar to Diana's experiments. Speaking of which, I actually sold a few fish to a teacher who was doing this experiment today.

I am in the bad habbit of not checking nitrates guess you can say normal planted tank dude lol, cause I know the readings won't be right but really i didn't plan on getting another test kit because I usually never check nitrates not even in a normal tank that is fish only. In a fish only tank you will notice changes in ammo and nitrite and hardness in water if nitrates are excessive that means time for water change. Discuss only tank is different but when you apply the rules in a planted tank nitrates usually means nothing and test resaults are always not correct when doing EI dosing<- in the formula somewhere when i did my research in it I had to look close because I can't remember but we eaither add nitrites to the tank or nitrates eaither way don't matter but then the test resaults arn't right with the plants changing that nitrate to ammo to intake cause most prefer ammo, some like nitrite and some like nitrate so on and so on! -.o its why I did research and lucky to meet a local breeder of discus who understood ei dosing and had a planted tank himself with discuss, he said lol set the tank up let cycle 2 days and put the discus in, you will have no issues. I hit ammo issues and found it was from over feeding especially beefheart that stuff is messy as hell! At that time the breeder seen in my tank what was happining and said well 1 easy solution feed less, and get yourself some corys and don't worry to much about overstocking tank start low ammounts and work up till you have enough to eat all the uneatin food. We did remove the discuss thow hehe a little problem nothing out of the norm for him, he knew exactly what to do. Currently I am treating the discuss for this fungal crap so won't be back in the planted tank till about next week <- its how i knew the new fellas in the planted tank had fungal issues! Better safe than sorry i guess so talked to my local breeder not only was he pissed but said oh well happens lets treat them to be safe and see what happens -.o they are doing very well Right now we are staying away from the beefheart but will feed them this later he is showing us how to figure out how much they will comsume of this stuff the juvs usually eat tons of it though. Reminds me I still need to update my 55 show tank section hehe.

 

[Bignose]

Thanks for all the information Bignose. Like I said, I don't know a whole lot about planted tanks but I am glad I learned that. I had always read that plants preferred to use nitrates as their only found source. I had no idea different plants used different stages of the nitrogen cycle as a food source. Great information Where these findings relatively new, because I have never heard of them before...


On another note, I have heard about a self sustaining tank before which seems similar to Diana's experiments. Speaking of which, I actually sold a few fish to a teacher who was doing this experiment today.

I don't think that the findings are new -- some of the references Walstad cites are from the 1970's. They just weren't well known.

This happens a lot in fishkeeping (and other hobbies, too) where the inertia of of knowledge is self-sustaining. Part of the issue is that most terrestrial plants that take up nitrogen from the ground take up nitrate as their preferred nitrogen source. Like with aquatic plants, there are some that prefer the others, and most terrestrial plants can use all the different kinds of nitrogen, but nitrate is generally the best.

So, maybe it was just assumed that nitrate was best for aquatic plants, too. Couple that with the fact that aquatic plants will take up the nitrate (but most will then convert it to ammonia), the nitrate in the water does disappear. Either through direct uptake, or when the plants take up the ammonia they leave less to go through the cycling process, there is less nitrate as a result. So, it is easy to see where people might have made that mistake.

Fishkeeping has lots of other examples. The myth about ich's dormant stage or how ich is in all water doesn't seem to want to die, either. So, I try to correct whatever I know to be wrong whenever I see it. Maybe, just maybe the actual facts will get out. It's an uphill climb.

 

[OldMan47]

You don't need to go to the planted tank section to find someone using Walstad's basic approach, BigNose. I have lots of conventional planted tanks but also have a Walstad style tank. It was cycled by laying in the soil and planting heavily, the fish went in next day from a surplus in another tank. I never lost any fish and do a water change on that tank 3 or 4 times a year. The conventional tanks get lots more water changes and I actually sometimes test them. On my higher tech planted tanks, a recent venture for me, I actually dose a fair amount of nitrogen to keep the levels high enough for my plants to grow. The high tech plants grow a bit faster but the stability of the Walstad is just not there.

 

[theshadowinc]

Well good news I took in water from my breeding tank a cycling tank with nothing in it at the moment, I tested the water before i took it in, the reading are

0ppm ammo
0ppm Nitrite
5ppm Nitrate

well who cares took this in good enough for me! I thaught I would run into an issue with having some nitrate in there. Well they tested the water and what a shocker!

.5ppm ammo
0ppm nitrite
0ppm nitrate

I don't understand how they got the reading! I told the person its impossible something wrong with there test kit because mine are not that old and I tested the water before I braught it and did my ei dosing right after I teste (EI Dosing he asked what is that)Just said it has to do with plants, its a planted tank! Oh okay he said! Well looks fine to me he said and gave 2 panda corys instead of the pygmys cause really they had no pygmys left and they where half the price of panda's and didn't bother giving me a hard time at all!

So they refunded us the fish, with no hassles this time, but the only difference was I went in with the wife! Tried treating the Pygmy cory but it was not doing well we thaught it was dead but it was bleading from the inside >< so weird. Took it in with us to show the internal parasite! They keep it and gave refund!

I don't think it matters what tank it is, you will always have some kind of Nitrate! Someone tells me 0 i have a hard time believing it doing the test you might get yellow in there case, cause thats the test method they used! But when I test it with the 0-100mg/l test kit I have it always tests some ammount of nitrate weather its 2,3,4,5 ppm.

So good day at the lfs today! Guess I can carry on shopping for my frozen foods there even though its freakin expensive as hell! Anyone know where I can get a box shipped to me for really cheap these discuss eat this stuff like crazy its like 40$ a month here for me to keep these things ><. I guess the guy just seen me and knew who I was and didn't give to much of a hassle cause he knows I am in there all the time to get frozen foods!