Milan

Val, there is also a difference in dosing to be considered. 10 Flourish tabs treat 30 gallon tank twice, where with Flora Dose you have to use twice as much. As far as ingredients go, I'm not sure, but I would assume they are very similar. You can also achieve a similar effect by injecting a TE solution deep into the substrate, providing your substrate has high CEC. You can use a syringe with a long needle, the ones for medicating animals (@ United Farmers of Alberta, $2). You can use the same technique for injecting macros, for heavy rooters.

"Après moi le déluge" [after me, the flood] - Louis XV, King of France (1715-1774), How pathetic ...! The world of aquatic hobby does not come to an end with your store not being around, nor it's going to affect the market in Calgary in any sense. And as for the employees, please stop patronizing them ... All they have to do is to walk into a next door store and apply. Plenty of "help wanted" signs everywhere. I'm sure they will fare well. BA had no career jobs either .... right?

I do not sympathize with them. This is probably the consequence of their poor business practice. Good luck with the liqudation ... P.S. Perhaps, you can answer potential questions here, rather than asking people to come to your door for that purpose.

Lights vs. Tank Size Here is an interesting study about the correlation in between lights wattage and tank size, based on Takashi Amano's practices. http://www.fitchfamily.com/lighting.html

No need to test distilled ... Just take readings before and after adding 30 ml KNO3 solution in those 5 gallons of water. This does not need to be distilled. Tap is fine. Normally, Calgary tap does not have any measurable NO3, but it's a good practice to have a two-point verification.

Doesn't sound right for NO3 to drop from 70's to 5 ppm in a day, even after a 50% WC. Not even if you managed to put the mighty Sun on the top of your tank with all the CO2 in this world .... I would doubt either the previous or this last reading. To verify your NO3 test kit, you can use KNO3 as follows: - Dissolve 1 tsp of KNO3 in 500 ml of distilled water. - Add 30 ml of this solution to 5 gallons of water. This should raise the NO3 level by 10 ppm.

I would rather call it just "too high" ... You will need to do more water changes/vacuuming till it drops to about 10-15 ppm, and thereafter check the level on regular basis without adding any NO3 thru fertilizers to get the picture of it's trend from organic side. This will hopefully tell you how often you will need to do water changes and what nutrients (if any) need to be supplemented, in which quantities. Same thing with PO4, but in your case this is less of an issue. You may also want to verify your test kit against a known solution, just to make sure it's not out of wack ... Once again, your fish load is too high, and you have to act upon it ...

Vic, I'm just curious how did you come up with 75 ppm of NO3? It's really hard to tell the level with such resolution at this range. I use AP test kits, and the color chart goes 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, and 160 ppm. I'm not color blind, but it's very hard to tell the difference between 40 and 80 ppm colors ...

Hello Vic, The parameters you took suggest you will need to do a major water change ASAP. Specifically, NO3 and PO4 are too high. Keep them @ around 10-20 and 1 ppm respectively. You should not have any readable NO2 if your tank is completely cycled. However, this (0.2 ppm) may be either a false reading, or the cycling is indeed incomplete. I would repeat the NO2 test, and ammonia as well ... NO3 and PO4 build up is most likely coming from organic source (fish waste, food, decaying plant tissue ...). Previous comments on your fish load still stand. I noticed you upped your lights to 2 wpg, but your CO2 level is at 6 ppm, which is practically no more than ambient concentration. In other words, NOTHING! Your escape from this is either to lower your lights back to where they were before (1.7), or make damn sure you bring the CO2 level up to at least 20 ppm and plant your tank heavily. Otherwise, you are heading for an algae warfare.

Hello Luke, You may be OK with TMG only, but it's hard to tell not knowing the bio load and plant mass. Your tank(s) in terms of lighting is somewhere in a transition zone in between low and high light conditions. Most commercial stuff is based on K (Potassium) + TE (Trace Elements) formula, including TMG. I think you have made a good decision to try it out first. However, I would advise you to test for PO4 and NO3 a week or so after cycling ... just to make sure you are on the right track. If any of these is dropping, you will need to supplement it diferently ...

In tropical tanks most people shoot for 24-26C (75-79F). 85F (29C) seems to be on the high side. What was the temperature before he raised it?

The plant's name is Sagittaria subulata . However, you will need more plants in that tank. I would suggest you add as starters some fast growing plants, such as Hygrophila species, Cabomba, Bacopa .... Also, 13W (I assume fluorescent) is very little for this tank. I would up that to at least 30W. If you are using this tank as a sump (???), the fertilization needs to be scheduled having in mind both main and this tank. It may be a dificult task to accomodate plant's needs under diferent lighting conditions in the same body of water.

The answer is rather simple ... This is how long plants photosynthesize ... Any photoperiod longer than that is not beneficial to them, which can not be said for algae. Another note .. If plants do not recieve light of adequate intensity, you CAN NOT compensate that with prolonged photoperiod.

What is interesting is that tanks which took first places in both categories are actually very small tanks. Just little over 10 gallons ... "The Rainforest" is just stunning ... Low lights, no CO2, simple ...

Pretty much every tank is unique in terms of CO2 demand (plants bio mass, tank size, lights, and so on ....). The only information I could come across as to how long would a cylinder of CO2 last is from a guy who has a 5lb cylinder on a 75g tank, and he goes through refills every 4-6 months. No idea about bubbling rate ... So, perhaps you can project this on your setup. Good choice of the regulator ...

The results of IALC have been announced. Please look at the winner's tanks: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumap...ead.php?t=13423 and to see all entries look here: http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/contest...?action=viewall Hope this will inspire us on AA to engage into aquascaping at it's best, and some day our little "Tank of the Month" grow into a world class contest. Cheers, Milan

Thanks for the info guys ...

This is true. Moisture helps it cure. In some other applications, where I had to apply silicone really thick I mixed it with moist sand.

I believe this is the key sentence ... Also, I wish to welcome Nate to AA board, and hope his presence here will be on regular basis, from now on ... :welcome:

I have a spare 4-pin 55W 21" PC fluorescent tube which I would like to utilize. So far I managed to find a socket for it (2G11), and I guess the only missing part is the ballast. Has anyone tried to use some of those cheap Home Depot ballasts made for T-bulbes with PC tubes?

I'm glad it worked for you. The mixture you used is fine, however I would suggest you using brewer's yeast, as it is more tolerant to alcohol than baker's, thus it lasts longer. Also, keep yeast leftovers in the fridge.

Which link is not working? The one to AA articles, or this: http://www.qsl.net/w2wdx/aquaria/diyco2.html ?

Rule of thumb says: With 2-4 wpg you need CO2 supplementation, 4 being the limit for smaller tanks, and 2 for larger. So, I would say with your tank size and 2.2 wpg, you are in a gray zone ... I would use CO2. Please read this very good article about CO2:

In my opinion, the only thing that matters in deeper tanks is the amount of light. If I recall my physics correctly, the intensity of light penetrating water decreases exponentially with depth: Id = Io*EXP^ (-k*d) Id = Intensity @ depth Io = Intensity @ surface k = absorption factor d = depth (in meters) So, I ran some numbers through this equation to see how much the the ratio "Id/Io" changes with the increase of "d" (from 0 to 24"), and for various "k" (1-5), and here are the results in graphical form:

Vic, WPG rule of thumb is not linear with tank volume. For smaller tanks WPG is higher, more toward higher value, and vise versa. That's why it's given as a range. I have not yet come across any study explaining the exact correlation, but hey ... it's a rule of thumb. However, the range I know of is 2-4 wpg. Also, THIS IS NOT A LIGHT REQUIREMENT, but a guideline as to when the CO2 enrichment becomes mandatory, and such tanks considered to be "high light" tanks. You can still grow plants without it. You should not be concerned about how fish would adopt to higher light intensity. In the nature, the sun light is way more intense than anything you can put above your tank. And yep, ... lights are not cheap. If you decide to go with higher lights, you can kiss your stock fixture good buy and prepare for a bite on your budget ...