pineapple

In the latest issue of The Aquatic Gardener there is an article about 3 of Amano's aquariums (p13 and 14). TAG prints some statistics in a sidebar (see my scan below) for the tank photo which appears on p13 - "a tall aquarium with a dense background of showy plants". I have some questions about the stats, any answers would be appreciated.



Here are some quotes with my question after the = sign:

Filter: ..... NA carbon = what does this mean, carbon or not in the filter?

Substrate: .... Penac W ... Penac P = what is Penac?

Aeration: with a lily pipe = does this mean the lily pipe delivers and air/water mixture to the tank? Presumably mixed out of tank somewhere.

Water quality: ... TH: 10mg/l = TH is Total Hardness (same as GH?)
NO3: <1 mg/l = meaning less than 1ppm?
COD: 4 mg/l - what is COD?

Thanks in advance for your response.

Andrew Cribb

niko

Pineapple,

I have the same questions about the carbon, Oxygen through the lily pipe, and the commercial names of the substrates.

NO3 - yes it is ppm and from what I've seen published Amano's tanks always have very low NO3. Same goes for Phosphate.

COD - you may want to look at an older thread, we discussed COD there. Simplified COD is a way to measure how much Oxygen is consumed by organics AND inorganics in the water. Water with high consumption of Oxygen is considered "dirty". From what I understand 0 - 150 mg/L is considered low range COD. Amano has 4, meaning that his water is extremely clean.

Art, do you think that it would be ok if someone knowledgable posts an explanation about the ingredients of the commercial ADA substrates and additives? Clear Super = Active Carbon; Power Sand = pumice, peat... etc.

--Nikolay

HanshaSuro

<guess>Non-activated carbon?</guess>

pineapple

Niko, Thanks.

I also did a web search for Penac and am a little enlightened - not much though.

The following link and associated pages has some information on Penac P and W:

http://www.organicsa.co.za/Products/...c-w_water.html

I'm looking forward to hearing more from others.

Andrew Cribb

plantbrain

I would not put too much thought into Amano's measurements. He does not strike me as a plant physiologist. Wim mentioned that when we talked to him in the past. You can tell from his answers.
When I see data that is as consistent as those measurements, I know something is up.

I also know enough about plants and their growth to know what is required to grow plants to a certain level with a certain amount of lighting.

The substrate will only get you so far. It can be fun to play with, but the most dramatic improvements in growth are with the water column and that's something you can measure and get a rate. Substrates function as a nutrient pool if something in the water column runs low.
It's important and certainly not something you do not want to work on, but the water column plays a more dynamic role in terms of growth for aquatic plants. Some plants need iron in the substrate more than others.
Other plants seem to prefer aerobic substrates more than others.

He adds the liquid ferts regularly, and they have NPK in there.
If you dose daily, you can keep lower nutrient levels, but this does not gain you any advantage which Amano seems to believe for some reason.
But many believe "add just enough ferts" for the plants. this requires you to get a feel for the amounts and the ebb and flow of nutrient uptake and plant health in your tank. That's not something I or anyone can tell or explain to you over the web.

I've had 5-10x those amounts he states and great growth similar to what he has in the photos.

He seems to spend most of his time doing aquascapaes and photography, not measuring levels or trying new dosing routines or playing with light spectrums and CO2 levels.

He also gave no reason for turning CO2 off at night other than it's "Taboo in Japan".

A person can make even an odd method work, but that does not mean the method is good for most folks or repeatable with your tap water.

The other thing about the measurements: what type of test method was used and at what point in time was the measurement taken, like the time of day and also relative to the large weeekly water changes.

It's interesting his large water change routines and my own suggestion to that effect were arrived at independently. Dutch also did this. They had tap water with high NO3 and PO4. All they needed was K+ and trace and CO2. I had tap water with high PO4.

So who knows what the test mean. The routine is what matters, not some time slice of some measurements. That's not quite useless and certainly misleading.

River flows are often very low in nutrient level but they are not depeleted due to unidirectional flows, when applying this a tank which is more like a small pond, this level would quickly be removed.

Rivers have high algae growth like some lakes even at very very low levels of nuttrients, so the low levels of nutrients, in and of themselves do not help reduce algae.

The NO3 levels in my study site are around 0.5ppm NO3 and I used the best testing method available in the state of FL. Algae is highly abundant at the site, so is plant growth.

Hope this puts some of your hoopla over his measurements.
I'd not worry as much about that, look at the designs though.....they will help you

Regards,
Tom Barr

Roger Miller

I just want to clear up a misunderstanding before it goes too far.

0-150 ppm COD is the low range for the Hanna test kits. The Hanna kits are made to test "sewage"; 0-150 ppm might be low for sewage, but that is way high for healthy aquatic environment. COD is potentially lethal if it exceeds about 5 but it probably isn't a practical problem unless it gets quite a bit higher. COD may indicate serious problems at concentrations lower than 5, depending on what chemical is actually causing the COD. I don't have a lot of background on COD in planted aquariums. I expect that a COD of 4 is good, but not exceptional.

Does anyone know what they are using to test COD?


Roger Miller

niko

So if certain dangerous substance does not raise the COD reading why would one use the COD test to check the water polution?

That reminds me of the situation where tap water is checked for E. coli in order to monitor waste content, but other (more dangerous organisms) are not part of the standard test.

So, it seems that COD is just one of many parameters that could indicate clean water, right?

On another note - why does ADA finds it important to always publish NO2 content? Why not NH4, or K, Ca, Mg also?

--Nikolay

Roger Miller

In aquariums COD should be a pretty good measure of pollution, but it doesn't reflect the presence of any specific dangerous chemical. It does show how much oxygen would be consumed if the chemicals in the water all reacted. Figure that you probably have about 8-9 ppm of oxygen to start with and things in your aquarium will die if the oxygen concentration drops below 4-5 ppm. A COD of 5 ppm means that in the event of a power outage the oxygen level could drop to 3-4. If COD is 2 ppm then your tank is safe.

That is analogous; E. coli itself isnt a huge problem, but it is an indicator of recent fecal contamination and may indicate other problems too numerous to test for on a regular basis. In the case of COD, we don't have *any* way to test for a lot of the things (organics mostly) that would create the COD, but their presence at elevated levels not only spells a potential oxygen disaster but also indicates a generally poor state in the aquarium.

Low COD would be one indication of clean water, but it is an indicator, not a diagnostic test. It will indicate that a problem exists, but it won't necessarily tell you what the problem is.


Roger Miller

pineapple

Tom, Roger, Niko, Thanks for the input.

Sidebars are in themselves tiny slices with much left out. Obviously there is a danger in reading too much into them.

Amano is a great name and presumably he has people on site with expertize to make up for his lack of it in certain areas outside the creative design.

Generalizing, it appears that the philosophy/idea is to have water as simple and 'clean' as possible - with just enough in the water to support the plant life in the aquarium. Living on the edge.

Thanks for the discussion on COD - I will check more into it from other sources.

There always has been a difference between Western and Eastern art and design; there is also a large difference in the approaches of Western and Eastern medicine. I suspect there is also some subtle differences between our two approaches to aquarium maintenance. Only experience can tell. Tom, Roger and Niko certainly have more than I (having just returned to this delight after many years away).

Andrew Cribb

plantbrain

Roger,

This issue of COD is prehaps why some tanks over time get those sour spots, from too much organic matter/mulm accumulated in spots. Or the tank in general.

After a few times of uprooting and trimming, the amount of decayed root mass increases up to a point where the amount of OM stops helping the plant's roots and becomes a drain on the O2 in the roots zones and even if severe enough, a drain on the water column.

I re work my sections pretty well and disturb things enough to remove most build up. Every once in awhile I'll deep vacuum a mature substrate.

I've noticed the souring effect more so on sand/laterite tanks that the more aerobic Flourite. I've never had that issue with the RFUG's ever.

I do not think the COD is useful unless you consider the substrate fraction.

There's a good range of OM and too much or too little is outside that optimum.

Generally with the large water changes Amano and I do and others, COD in the water column will remain very low unless a lot of mulm is being formed.

I do think the mulm can build up and cause issues for some tanks though.

Regards,
Tom Barr