My 55g <UPDATE 4/17/10 on pg 5>

[jeremyh81]

I agree that the lower plant level is probably causing the ammonia to be detactable. Plus there is more pleco waste and some dead algae. I've been using a HOT Magnum with a gravel vac attachment to clean the tank, so the detritus is removed while recycling the tank water.

I didn't get around to that because I want to chop up the driftwood into smaller pieces. That will help a lot with the water flow. So we wait for the weekend.

[angel]

Plexiglas waste?

[jeremyh81]

Oops! That was supposed to be "pleco" waste.

That's what I get for trusting the auto-correction on my Droid and not proofreading. ;D

[angel]

You had me worried there

[jeremyh81]

Hopefully, the cheap reciprocating saw that attaches to a power drill will do the trick. I got it from Harbor Freight for no more than $5 but haven't tried to use it yet. The concept alone seems dangerous, but I'm good at hurting myself with just about anything. ;D

[jeremyh81]

But everyone can be at some ease knowing that I'm safe with power tools, am a former paramedic, and know how safely use power tools.

[jeremyh81]

I can see where the hacksaw would have been a pain if it didn't have a coarse, wood cutting blade! The jigsaw, even with the limited cutting length, can be workable, as I'm sure you figured out. A reciprocating saw (AKA "Sawzall") is basically a jigsaw w/ a longer blade.

(For everyone else's sake) Say the usable part of your saw blade is only half the thickness of the material. Just cut one side the way you want and mirror that cut on the other side, or even elaborate the shape of the cut however you want!

[jeremyh81]

Oh, forgot to mention that after reading some threads at www.aquaticplantcentral.com, I decided to reduce my photoperiod to 10 hours in all of my tanks this morning. I'm also double-dosing Flourish Excel until the GHA on the driftwood goes away.

[jeremyh81]

The CO2 is off now. Either I can't get the recipie right or it's leaking out somewhere in the line. Just been too tired to run a new line and separate airstone.

See, I have one of those power strips with the single mechanical timer. It has 4 outlets that are always on, 2 that are on during the set time, and 2 outlets that come on when the timer outlets are off. In my ideal setup, my lights and CO2 would be on the timer with the air pump on the "night" outlet so it comes on when lights are off. Once everything balances out, I would remove the air pump.

I just took a peek from the side of the tank, and the water is starting to cloud up. It's a very faint green, so I'm thinking it's a bacterial bloom. Going to test the water to see what's going on.

[jeremyh81]

Here are the water test results:

Ammonia: >0.25ppm
Nitrite: 0.25ppm
Nitrate: 5-10ppm
pH: 7.6

The numbers are looking like ammonia has spiked and bacteria is building a larger colony. Also, I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on the water parameters and tetras now. Before the lights went out, they appeared normal: eating well and swimming in their usual tank regions.

I read about the willow branch trick at APC (I think). Would that be weeping willow (if there's more than one kind - I'm no botanist)? If so, there's a giant one just behind my apartment that I could take a branch from.

When I setup the 26 in September, I started it out w/ goldfish and never had an algae bloom (greenwater, pea soup, etc.). Only a long-hair green algae outbreak right before I gave the goldfish away to a pond owner and dropped in 6 of the 7 danios I have now. At that time, the 4-6 wisterias were only 4" tall, and I didn't have a real test kit.

I got rid of that algae by twirling it around a toothbrush and adding 3 ottocinclus. The first otto didn't make it because nitrates were over 30ppm (ottos are very sensitive). Then I started removing the artificial decor in favor of more wisterias, a piece of mopani driftwood, and river rocks from a tributary creek of Tims Ford Lake.

The first filter was a HOT Mag 250, then I later added a Penguin 200B. For media, I used carbon in both filters until the biowheel was populated. Now I have Fluval's bio-spheres in the HOT Mag and regular Penguin cartridges in the 200B.

The tank in this topic only has a single Fluval 305 canister w/ carbon and bio-spheres. It's been running since 12/19/09 and was planted "heavily" (in my opinion) until the recent algae outbreak prompted me to try too many different things. I've made so many changes to this tank, I need to just leave it alone for now and watch for signs of stress in the tetras. I'm willing to take a hit on the plants in sake of the fish.

Also, the hood my dad and I built wasn't really designed with easy tank maintenance in mind, so any major cleanings require that I take the hood completely off, which removes the tank lights and leaves only ambient light to see what I'm doing.

So after deep thought last night, I'm probably going to buy a better hood. The ones that Critter sells are awesome. They are taller than mine and have a piano hinge in the front 1/4 of the "lid" that allows very easy access for cleaning while keeping the lights pointed down into the tank. The price of these hoods is as low as any offered online when you count shipping.

[jeremyh81]

I just did somewhat of a rescape. Trimmed a lot of plants and rearranged them. Cleaned out lots of mulum, and I'm working on cutting the driftwood. I forgot how hard it is to cut wet wood. ;-) I'll get pics tomorrow.

As for the fish, all is well, but the water is still green. Even the water parameters are the same. There aren't many things that can change overnight, unless something fails.

[jeremyh81]

If I took a picture of the tank right now, all you would see is pea soup. I'll be getting some phosphate removing media today for my filter and changing some of the carbon.

Unfortunately, I don't have a very large bio load, so this thing is taking forever to cycle. Right now, ammonia has dropped, but nitrites are hanging at >0.25ppm.

[angel]

He said nitrItes, though.

[sirknight]

If he has NITRITES (which is what Jeremy has stated) he is still in the initial cycle stage, He should not be doing water changes or adding anything to the tank until the cycle is complete, with the exception of makeup water. The tank will never completely cycle, until you give the bacteria a chance to develop. The entire nitrogen cycle if left along takes about 4 to 8 weeks. After the cycle is complete do a 50% water change then address the other issues. If you are adding more fish do it slowly one or two fish at a time, because the bacteria in his tank can only handle the bio-load of the current fish.

In the future try a fishless cycle. Depending on the way you do it, you can fully stock the tank when the cycle is complete and you don't put any fish in the stress they are going through with a fish cycle.

NITRATES at 25 in city water also needs to be addressed. As well as the phosphate, but not until the tank has cycled.


In White House all are undetectable, but I still run all my water through a sediment filter and two carbon filters, just in case something changes.

Joe

[jeremyh81]

Yes, my mistake was by doing a water change.

Metro's water report doesn't list phosphorus, but in 2008, there were 0.25mg/L (ppm) nitrates in city tap, which is acceptable.

Last night I replaced 2 of 3 carbon packs with 1 bag of phosphate/silica media and 1 bag of fresh carbon, then placed polishing pads at the top just over the bio media. I'll remove the pads tonight, unless someone thinks I shouldn't (they tend to clog up fairly quick).

Just a side note: the Fluval 305 I'm running has 3 baskets that are divided into 2 sections, so I basically have 6 baskets of media, 3 of which contain bio media. From bottom to top (the way water flows through the filter), I have phosphate media/fresh carbon in basket 1, 1-month-old carbon/bio media in basket 2, and biomedia w/ polishing pads in the 2 sections of basket 3.

The lights just turned on as I am typing this, and I can now just barely see the plants in the back of the tank. All of my stem plants are growing well, and the leafy plants are still thriving. No noticable stress in the tetras - they're swimming very actively from one end of the tank to the other.

Joe, my original intent was to do a silent cycle using the plants, but over time, I've reduced the amount and type of plants. My impatience is the primary reason for me rushing the cycle. I'm hesitant to add more fish because I only want to buy the species that will remain in the tank for life.

2 questions:

I have 2-55w, 6700K PCF's running off of a single Fullham Workhorse 5 ballast. Should I unplug one bulb until the algae retreats and/or the cycle is complete? Will it damage the ballast by only running 1 bulb?

Going to refill my coffee cup and do another water test for now.