New Tank, Questions.

[Norvu]

Alright, I'll stop using pH down if it is dangerous. I'm still doing water changes and cleaning the filter, hopefully will rehome as many of the current fish I have and get a more diverse and interesting tank. I have about 10 Guppies, 15 Red Tuxedo Platys and 5 Corys (3 albino and 2 I think, Sterbai).

Also, my tank has 2 x 11W PL Lamps. Is this good enough for plants? Seems a little low to me and the Anubias I have doesn't seem to be doing well. I was looking at compact tubes for tropical aquariums, but the highest wattage seems to be 11, but when looking at the same tubes but for marine tanks, they go up to 24W! So, of course, I'm wondering why I couldn't just use that.

I've also been looking into building my own CO2 injection system from a fire extinguisher, which seems quite easy to do and quite cheap.

Still waiting for the testing kit, get paid on Wednesday and I think I'll run to my LFS and purchase that right away. Still haven't had any fish die since swapping tanks (other than the two kissing fish from my brothers tank and a baby loach thats gone missing), so it's going okay thus far.

Edit:

Oh yeah, I found a snail today. Just a single one, but worried in case I get a sudden influx. Is it worth getting some of that Wormer Plus? Or maybe even an Assassin Snail, as my tank isn't very large.

 

[natalie265]

Alright, I'll stop using pH down if it is dangerous. I'm still doing water changes and cleaning the filter, hopefully will rehome as many of the current fish I have and get a more diverse and interesting tank. I have about 10 Guppies, 15 Red Tuxedo Platys and 5 Corys (3 albino and 2 I think, Sterbai).

Also, my tank has 2 x 11W PL Lamps. Is this good enough for plants? Seems a little low to me and the Anubias I have doesn't seem to be doing well. I was looking at compact tubes for tropical aquariums, but the highest wattage seems to be 11, but when looking at the same tubes but for marine tanks, they go up to 24W! So, of course, I'm wondering why I couldn't just use that.

I've also been looking into building my own CO2 injection system from a fire extinguisher, which seems quite easy to do and quite cheap.

Still waiting for the testing kit, get paid on Wednesday and I think I'll run to my LFS and purchase that right away. Still haven't had any fish die since swapping tanks (other than the two kissing fish from my brothers tank and a baby loach thats gone missing), so it's going okay thus far.

Edit:

Oh yeah, I found a snail today. Just a single one, but worried in case I get a sudden influx. Is it worth getting some of that Wormer Plus? Or maybe even an Assassin Snail, as my tank isn't very large.

2 Watts per gallon is a reasonable amount of light for a planted tank. Anubias have very low light requirements and should do fine in your set up even w/out CO2. If you wanted to try plant species that have high lighting requirements, you'll need to upgrade your lights (and add CO2).

Marine tanks use a different kind of light than freshwater tanks. I recently bought a new light fixture for my freshwater, planted tank and the fixture came with a marine bulb. I was advised by my LFS to purchase a freshwater bulb. I'm a bit confused about this myself. It seems counter intuitive. If the bulb is good enough for coral, why isn't it good enough for plants? Hopefully someone can explain!

 

[OldMan47]

The coral light is intended to nourish the algae that the corals rely on for their "food". Unfortunately we are not trying to grow algae in our freshwater tanks, instead we want to grow plants and inhibit the algae. The end result is that we are better off with lights that tend to the red end of the spectrum while the corals need a light that tends more to the blue end of the spectrum. The longer wavelength lights, the ones with lower K ratings, work better for plants and do not promote as much algae growth. You are better off with 5000K to 6700K lights for plants while you want 10000K or higher light temperatures for corals. The corals even do better with what are called actinic lights which are a definite blue hue to our eyes.

 

[Norvu]

Well, right now I have two PL11W tubes in my tank but found a site that sells other types of tubes for my tank, which ones do you recommend I buy as I am current running a combined 22 watts in a 20 gallon tank (giving me about 1.1 wpg) and want the best possible lights for my tank, but I think, because of the tank lid 22 Watts will be the most I get out of these types of bulbs.

 

[OldMan47]

All you will ever see from that fixture is the same wattage. The most you can do is try to get the right bulbs within that range. I am not familiar with the PL designation except to guess that it stands for plant light. The container that the bulb came in should give a lot of information as far as spectrum, CRI etc. that would be a decent enough guide to the characteristics of the bulb.

 

[Norvu]

Should have probably included a link to the different types of bulbs avaliable for my tank my bad. Click here to see all the different types. I'm guessing the PL11W mix Triphosphor 7.1k & Biolux 8k Tube is the best choice? I have no idea.

 

[OldMan47]

Of all of those choices I would go with the PL11W Triphosphor 7.1k Tube for UFO 550. Do not let them kid you though, a 4 pin square pattern light tube can be obtained in lots of places. It is a semi-standard light tube that may be manufactured in many other phosphor combinations by the big bulb manufacturers. Try a bit of an on-line search and see what the real options are.

 

[Norvu]

Yeah, looking around a bit more and there are more available (with a higher wattage also), but most of the sites don't say the kelvin, which is a pain in the #16#####. Also, quite a few of the "4 pin triphosphor compact light tubes" I've seen are dimmable, which seems cool. I'm guessing I need to buy something to actually get the dimming feature though?

Thanks for all the help

 

[OldMan47]

You need bulbs with the same wattage as the ones you already have. The ballast in your fixture is made for that size tube and no others. The only real options that you have is the phosphors, which will be expressed in terms of the light spectrum they produce.

 

[natalie265]

oldman, thanks for the explanation! Makes sense now!

 

[Norvu]

My tank has got slightly cloudy again. I done a water change, but added the right amount of API Stress Coat before pouring in my tap water, I'm guessing this means my beneficial bacteria kicked the bucket? Poor show, old chap.

Also, I was thinking about the foam stuff plants have when you first buy them (or when they come in the post)... surely they must come from a cycled tank, so would they contain bacteria I could take advantage of in some way? Just a random thought that went through my mind.

 

[OldMan47]

Plants are not grown in fish tanks by commercial growers. Many of the plants we buy are actually grown emmersed. That means the substrate they are planted in is under water but the top of the plant is out in the air. Those plants may have small traces of beneficial bacteria but are not growing in a location where much of what we need would exist.

Doing a water change will not have affected your cycle at all. If your filter was at a particular stage of cycling, it still is. The Stress Coat is a brand name dechlorinator so its use would be appropriate for a water change.

 

[finalfantay85]

The cloud could be a bacterial bloom couldn't it?

 

[Norvu]

Oh, I just remembered I took out my carbon from my filter when I cleaned it (and did a 20% water change). I'll add it back in tomorrow along with another water change. And yeah, API Stress Coat is just a dechlorinator, but I also read it converts Ammonia into Ammonium, which the beneficial bacteria can still munch on, but keeps fish from swimming in toxic stuffs.

Is this good to use whilst cyling? Even if the bacteria can eat it, will they initially develop in the filter with it?

Again, thanks for the help

 

[Norvu]

More questions, sorry guys

I was under the impression that you had to use an air stone in tanks to oxygenate the water for fish, is this true? I was reading that you should get rid of an air stone (I have one of those bubble wand things) if you inject CO2 otherwise the CO2 will just disperse. Do the plants create enough oxygen for the fish? I was thinking I could set up the CO2 to come on when the lights come on using a timer, and put the diffuser under my filters intake (to let it dissolve as much as possible). Then, using a separate timer I'd attach some LEDs for moon light and the air pump.

Will this still make my CO2 leave the water, or is this viable for a happy medium? I wouldn't mind doing this actually, because that #41#### air pump is the nosiest thing about the entire tank.