jcgd

It means it's not meant to be under water, dry or not. Silicone degrades in water and it's not meant to be used for our purposes. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work; the company just isn't going to take responsibility for it. Even in water it lasts years, if not decades. Scs1200 is ridiculously strong, much stronger than GE1. Definitely shouldn't be using GE1 for tanks. But once again, it will usually cut it for smaller tanks and resealing.

I don't know what he has for a tank. I may be the lights, but I've done well witha 2xt5ho Glo fixture over a 90 gallon hung about 7" off the water. Grow low light plants no problem, but it definitely wasn't high light. I'm not saying it's the co2. It could be anything. But with t5ho it is very rare that there is too little light. Especially if the plants are pearling. Diatom algae I usually just manually remove and it fades after a few weeks. It usually shows up in newer tanks. How old is this setup? I

So what do watts have to do with making the plants grow? I have a 150 watt hair drier at my place. Will that grow plants? Watts are watts right? (Yes) Watts are energy usage, and have nothing to do with light output. 99.9% of the time you want to increase ferts, increase co2 and lower the lighting levels. If you have decent reflectors, and unless your tank is tall (over 20") or very wide (front to back) you should be able to grow just about anything with a single T5HO. Since you are EI dosing you don't need to worry about that. You can rule out the lighting with a par meter, but I will assume you don't have one or want to buy one ($$$). With two bulbs you need to be on top of the co2. Co2 is hard to get right. When I can have trouble with lots I light and I've been using it for years. I would start out with lots of water changes and a good tank cleaning gettin out any dying plants, leaves, mulm buildup, etc. reducing ferts would be a mistake unless something is out of wack like high phosphates and low nitrates. I have not found any ferts that cause algae. Usually it is a shortage of one that opens the door. EI dosing itself will not cause algae. It can however bring out co2 limiting issues and such that we're not apparent before. For example, a tank with co2 and high light but low ferts can run well until you switch to EI. All the sudden the po4 limitation that existed is lifted and the co2 demand jumps greatly and the plants all stunt out. It would appear that the EI caused the stunning when really it was the co2... You were just limiting growth before and got lucky. Co2 is by far the most important and unforgiving. It is the root of most issues in high light setups.

Sounds like low O2 to me. I'd get an airstone running or point the filter output so it breaks the surface. Was there a power outage? I'm assuming you aren't running pressurized co2?

How would, theoretically, a sump based failure spill more than a cannister based failure, which could drain the tank down to the intake, which is generally close to the bottom of the tank? A sump can spill the contents of the sump, plus the back flow from the display at the very most. A cannister can drain up to ~80% of the tank. What did you have in mind?

Wow, thanks. What a compliment. Update:

Can you Pm me a list of infected stores? It seems to me like they are being spread between us on the forum here. I went a long time without buying from any pet store before I got an outbreak. Pretty much put down every fish in my 90 gallon.

Use the old leaves with the babies to anchor them elsewhere, unless the plantlets are large enough to pluck and plant seperately. Trim all the dead/ dying, unsightly, odd coloured or just un-perfect leaves from the original rhizome. If any of the leaves left start to die, trim them too. Trim the rhizome bare if you have to, it will still put out new leaves. When you get java fern or bolbitis you can trim the old leaves when you plant it (tie to wood) or you can trim them as the new leaves die off and new ones come in. I had a 75 gallon pack with ferns that I put in a bucket for a year. One day I pulled out all the rhizomes and trimmed off all the dying leaves (most where gone, I trimmed the few that were left) and threw the bare rhizomes in a tank. They've all come back and look like normal healthy java fern.

I'm sorry, the tank is a 7 gallon? And there are rainbowfish in there? And you had 35 fish to start? I can't think of many rainbows of which you could have more than maybe three or four in a tank that size. Even pseudomugils should have a bigger tank than that.

Looks like one to me.

If you want multiple lifetime supplies of convicts go for it. They are very prolific.

It will probably float, but I would turn the filter off and test a little before you go nut to find out it doesn't. I usually follow with a syphon or else it can get everywhere. I have a big tank so it takes forever to pick it out. Is there any dead plant material in the tank? BGA likes organics, but letting the nitrates get low or to 0ppm will also invite it. Low flow lets it find more places to grow a colony, it doesn't grow well in high flow. You want to fix it, because if it's there now, there are conditions that are causing it to flourish. You want to fix those issues before it gets bad. Excel might help. Peroxide works well for hard to get areas after manual removal. Be ruthless and remove as much as you can get every second day or so. Blackouts apparently help, but I don't like to rely on them. I beat it in my 160 gallon after a good four weeks. You can image how much that sucked to deal with.

The hairgrass will go nuts when you flood the tank. Pump the co2 though, for the first week or two, you'll typically get a bit of die back on the hc and hairgrass. After you flood you can trim the hairgrass down short (1/2") just like moving the lawn and the DHG will bounce back with a vengeance. There might be extra die back on the other species.

You might not need another bulb or co2 with your current plant list. The replacement pc bulbs are very expensive, so you could swap to a double t5 fixture or a single t5ho when you need to replace it after 8-12 months of use.

The particle board construction would technically be much stronger than using screws to take the weight, instead of transferring the load directly down to the ground. Particle board just isn't idea because it soaks up water. Strength wise it's great. Workability wise, it's great too. I think the stand will hold no problem, but you really want those verticals to be between the top and bottom. With sandwiched verticals you could literally park a car on the stand with no issues strength wise. Wood glue is incredibly strong, so I prefer it and you clamp or screw the joints just to hold the surfaced together until the glue sets.

Trace is just micros. NPK are your macros. A low light tank without co2 are usually fine with only the trace. More light and co2 uses more NPK and you usually use lots of kno3.

I hacked the left side back, the P. stellata and A. gracillis are growing very fast. They fill in the left side fast and the right lags behind. there's a bunch of L. arcuata in the foreground, just to see if I can keep this batch alive. So far so good, but it's very green... just like everything else in the tank.

Thanks, it's Seiryu stone. It ain't cheap and you have to have it shipped in. PC1 sells it on plantedtank.net.

he light level, it's the plant natural demand on co2. Some plants are co2 hogs and will always win out in a "low tech" tank. Other plants do well with little co2, like java fern, anubias, crypts, etc. Some plants, regardless of the light level, need more or less co2 than others. I suppose what I wrote above isn't explained well. People think that it's always light that determines what they can and can't grow when really it's a combination of light AND co2 limitation. Enough light and little co2 and you'll have plants that do well and others that don't. The co2 hogs are good at getting at the available co2 while others can do well with less light and lots of co2. Some need both. Low light high co2 is a safer bet than low co2, low light and low co2 and moderate light. The first will likely be easier to balance and grow more plants well. Low co2, low light will work fine, but limit your plant selection even more. If you have low co2 and start bumping your light levels up you are starting to push your light. I'm not sure if I'm even making sense, just woke up and I'm slow... My point is, you have to understand the limitations of every method and how they apply to you and your goals. Just thought I'd note, it's Mr. Barr. He's a graduate student.

This one dims by the minute I believe, and splits the difference (0-100%) over the timeframe you choose. Each controller can do four pwm signals, so four channels. You can control a bunch of strings of leds from one channel, but they all have the same schedule/dim. Each channel is set for individual on/off, fade duration and max brightness (0-100%). Mine are set at 100%, 100%, 60%, 60%. (RB, NW, left CW, right CW). I can manually override the lights with All on, All off, All at fade (0-100% choice), or timer The RB and NW give almost no umol of par to the tank, Maybe 12 or so at the surface and none at the substrate. The difference from 60% to 100% on the cool whites takes the par at the substrate from ~80umol of par to 170 umol of par. The surface goes from 170 umol of par to 330 umol of par. I'm writing these figures from memory so I should double check them, but they are pretty close. You get the idea and because my light fixture is so high (40" off substrate) the drop off in par is only a ratio of 2x, while with a shorter tank, or the fixture closer to the water, the difference in intensity between the substrate and the surface can be a much higher ratio. This tank has a difference of 5x: http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/08/03/par_values_0321_old_bulbs.jpg http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/08/03/par_values_0321_old_bulbs.jpg

Good Morning...

Oh jeez. It's hard to say. The whole build took me a year, but I had to build the fixture, come up with money, source all my parts, etc. If I had the money up front I could have all my parts in say three weeks with shipping. The hardscape took me a few hours, more playing than anything, but you can see it was pretty different in my first few pics (when I was actually setting up) versus now. I think it looks much better than day one now that I've sat on the layout, and then adjusted, and then waited again. There are still a few things I need to fix. The planting took about 10 hours. Setup of all the equipment, lights, etc. probably took around 6 hours if you have a helper to move stuff around. I find the planting to be most tedious. The first three weeks are hard work, lots of large water changes, getting the co2 set, I had to keep lowering the lighting intensity, etc. CO2 is the hardest to get right.

I don't think one or the other is the "smart way". The only reason I personally use higher might and co2 is that there are many species that just don't do well without it. If you want these species, it's not really an option. You can be as patient as you want, but you still end up with the same species that do well in such a setup.

I think it's a mistake to divide the forums myself. The methods are the same, only with one the light level should be low enought that co2 is not limiting, and isn't an issue. You increase the lighting and now co2 runs out stunting the plants. The method has not changed. Only the rate of growth, and as a result, the rate of nutrient uptake has increased. You are essentially keeping everything in balance.

50% off regular price or msrp? They have a funny habit of marking up before marking down.