Help! J-P's Set up

[J-P]

No, the Seachem substrates are not nutitiious until they have been in the tank for some time. I would do low dosing from day one as PP suggests. Getting plants established is key.

What is the lighting over the tank(s) to house those plants? Some of them are low-light and not demanding. Others are IME quite demanding or picky - such as the Barclaya and to some extent the Lotus (really a water lily, it is not a lotus despite the name).

Also be aware that the various mosses are likely to mix.

I installed the lights the other day. They are:
Sylvania T12 Gro-Lux wide spectrum 40W Have 6 of these and 2x soft white 40W

Given the segregated nature of the tank I am hoping to avoid the mosses mixing ... unless they propagate via spores..

[J-P]

I added the water on Dec 20th, (added shrimp Dec 21) and today the 27th, I pulled the shrimp out of the water but they were COVERED in slime. When they were disturbed the slime broke apart and floated all over the tank making a nasty stinky mess.

Is this "mucus" a form of fungus from the rotting shrimp? or is part of the benificial bacteria that latched itself on the shrimp?

[Pufferpunk]

Put them in a stocking, to keep the rotting pieces together.

[J-P]

Got an ammonia reading above .5 so I took it out and swaped the filter media.

Took out the old media, rinsed it and replaced it with new media from my 30 gal.

[Pufferpunk]

Why? You WANT ammonia.

[J-P]

I don't have alot of media in there and only 1/2 subtrate ..

If I take it slow and let the bio filters start bringing it down a little I can add more later no?
Never done a tank this size so I have no idea how long it will take...

[Pufferpunk]

Might as cycle what you've got correctly.

[RTR]

The slime on the shrimp is produced by or is itself saprphytes - either or both saprophytic bacteria and fungi. It is part of the digestion process and the ammonia is a by-product, waste product of that digestion.

I never use shrimp - I don't want the tanks to stink. My wife would rebel. Tanks should be seen and not heard IMHO, but they also should not stink.

Bacteria will colonize to consume ammonia (for energy, comparable to carbs for us). The waste product of those ammonia-oxidizers is nitrite. Other bacteria colonize which consume the nitrite, oxidizing it to nitrate, their waste product. That is the end of the line in unplanted FW tanks. Conditioning your biofilter is nothing more than establishing sufficient bacteria to oxidize a certain level of ammonia through nitrite to nitrate within some time period. The ammonia level and the time frame vary from hobbyist to hobbyist.

Ammonia production/release is not a bulk process. It is constant low-level release from effectively all aerobic life forms in the system, from bacteria through the inverts (which are mostly invisible or barely visible to the naked eye) to the fish themselves. Ammonia generation can be a signature of aeroobic life. It occurs constantly, not batch-wise, so our ammonia challenges to test biofilter function are artificial, but do show us that we have the bacteria in our filters that we need. The needed bacteria can colonize anywhere that they have current (to bring oxygen and water and minerals etc. to the bugs) and a "firm" (their definition, not ours) attachment site. That will be best in filters in out tanks, as other colonization sites are more subject to competition and other disturbances. Yes, that does mean that you can have fully functional nitrification bacteria without filter media - it is just not as well protected or as easily maintained. Consider Waldstad-type "natural" tanks without biofilters - they still have fully competent nitrification. It just is not housed in biofilters. Ammonia is toxic, so is nitrite, but nitrate is far less so. So we count on bacteria to make our over-crowded (compared to the wild) tanks sustainable.

HTH

[J-P]

Thank You!

I re-read the fishless cycling article again last night and today went shop to shop looking for ammonia. I finally found some pure ammonia that has no phosphates, colouring or additives. Did the fizz test and it didn't bubble.

Now I understand that once I receive trace Nitrites and Nitrates I am to back off on the ammonia and only add 50% of what I was using originally.

Is there a per gallon guide as to how much ammonia to add? The guide said to add a little at a time until the tank reaches .5 That is alot of constant testing.

Part 2: (I really got to get this project under control )
I went to the LFS today to get more filter media. I noticed that they had PLANTS! They had just come in that afternoon.
I asked the owner if they were for sale and he asked "which ones" , to which I replied .. "All of them". I took home new filter media, a bottle of stress coat, a 5 gallon goldfish bowl and 11 assorted plants.

I then added 2 kinds of substrate: Red Sea's Flora Base and Carib Sea's Eco-Complete.
On first Impression the Eco-Complete product is impressive as it comes in vacuum sealed bags and the gravel is already moist. $$
I cleaned out my 30 gal filters today and took the water from the 30 gal and put it into the fish bowl. I then cut a section off the new filter media and swapped it for an old one. I rinsed the old filters in the goldfish bowl and got about 1/2" of waste from them .. (yes they have been a little neglected)

I kept 1 used filter media in the fish bowl and the remainder of the new filter media in there also. Then plopped the plants in. It is a little crowded in there but at least the plants have a decent substrate and lots of food. Liquid fertalizer will be arriving tomorrow.

So now I am left with the problem of lighting and current. I am hope they will be ok until the large tank is ready to be seeded.

Just as a P.S. The LFS owner tied to sell me an F8 as a fresh water fish ... haha now I know! No Thank you!

[Pufferpunk]

I think you'd be better off ordering plants online.

[J-P]

haha already did .... maybe a week ago from that company I mentioned to you. I posted the list earlier in the thread.

I was aprehensive a little about these plants bucause my LFS is known for his dead fish .. of which there was one in the tank.. and of 4 angel fish (still in the bag), 2 were already dead. I don't really have confidence in his supplier either.

[RTR]

You already know my opinion of th nutrient-enriched substrates, so i won't repeat that.

A dead fish in a plant tank is a wonderful source of disease issues for your fish and tank. NIMFT.

There is no way to guesstimate how much of any pband or bottle of ammonia will be needed. The strength varies quite a lot from one brand to another. In any given bottle, the strength varies with time. Usage is purely empirical - you use enough to give you the titer you want in the system. Record that info and you can guestimate near-future additions to maintain the desired titer.

Yes, initial doage is commonly higher than post-ammonia spike dosage, as it is thought to speed the process. That too is debatable. Ammonia is inhibitory to multiplication of the nitrite-oxidizers. The nitrite-oxidizers can die back massively if the ammonia-oxidation stage is too long.

It is more polite to say that the LFS owner is misinformed. But it is perfectly possible that he is consciously lying. Many folks do believe that F-8s are FW fish. Ignorance can be cured with correct info, if the listener will accept it Lying is another matter.

Can you compute the nominal watts per gallon on the individual tanks? Total wattage is not very useful. Also the rough distance from the tubes to the substrate (exact meaures are not important)? Are there any reflectors at all?

[J-P]

1) 76.5 gal (L35" x W23.5" x D21.5") (aprox 1w/Gal?)
2) 67.7 gal (L35" x W23.5" x D19") (2.3w / Gal)
3) 55.2 gal (L35" x W23.5" x D15.5") (2.9 w / gal)
4) 53.4 gal (L35" x W23.5" x D15") (1.5 w / gal)
The bottom half has 2 sections:
5) 35 gal (L20" x W23.5" x D17") (2.2 w / gal)
6) 206 gal (L119" x W23.5" x D17") (1.3 w / gal)


The lights on the upper half are suspended 4 feet above the tanks .. with tanks 2 and 3 (67 and 75 gals being directly below the lights.
The lights on the lower tanks are 25" above the substrate.
The 8' long balasts leave aprox 2' of exposure at either end.

There are no reflectors.
I know you said not in total but tha'ts all I have ... 160W for the upper 250 gal section and the same as below. The only difference being the height of the balasts.

As for the substrate .. I bought 1 bag of each ... but lots of the sand .. I wanted to experiment a little

Thanks you for helping

[J-P]

Here are a few shots of the 5 gallon "plant quarenteen" tank ..

As RTR pointed out, there could be stuff (cling-ons) that came along with these. Since they haven't entered the main tank yet.. is there any way to be reasonably certain that they won't transfer something?

Salt bath? Fish Meds?

The brown sludge is debris from cleaning the filters

[J-P]

The Watts per gallon thing is kind of similar to my ammonia question: There dosn't seem to be a hard and fast rule .. I always assumed that the depth of the water had more to do with things that wats per gallon.

The top tanks for the most part are deeper than the bottom tanks, thus I would use plans that require low - med light in there. The bottom tank being more shallow (but still having the same watts per gallon) could take on plants that require higher light levels.

Too bad I don't have an underwater photometre.