fishstein

Hi All,

This is my first post in many many months, after my father was hospitalized long term and very ill. Thank you to fellow APC members who sent their good wishes and kind words. My father is still hospitalized, but things are more stable now, at least as much as they can be under the circumstances. My father introduced me to the tropical fish hobby at age 5, so he's in large measure responsible for our beautiful planted tanks and a great lifelong hobby (and for much more than I could ever thank him enough for). I'm glad to see that APC is as vibrant a community and as valuable a resource as ever.

After some neglect of our 75 gallon tank - relatively mild that is - no fish lost but most of my red stem plants gone after my wife and I weren't regularly dosing ferts and our tank was overtaken by valisneria stems and developed an outbreak of GDA which swamped our red stems - I removed almost every shred of the GDA, did two big water changes and we started dosing ferts again, with a little extra Seachem Excel, which is always great for getting rid of algae. After one week you could never tell there was a GDA outbreak. Growth is very healthy, just most of our red stems are gone, and the fish are very healthy.

We are switching to PPS Pro and have all the ferts and a scale and just have two quick questions we hope you can help us with. Note that these questions are for dosing a well-planted 75 gallon tank with medium lighting, CO2 fertilization and excellent circulation, which houses Tanganyikan cichlids, and that we've had very good results in the past with EI dosing. We keep about 1 cup of crushed coral in the Rena XP3 canister filter and during a 1/3 water change per week we add, for every 10 gallons of water added back to the tank, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon MgSO4 and 1 tablespoon sea salt. This helps make water that simulates the water in Lake Tanganyika and makes up for our very soft tap water. This has worked very well up to now for our plants and fish.

1) We are going to use Seachem Flourish for our PPS micro solution and dose 7.5 ml every day. For our PPS macro solution, also dosed at 7.5 ml every day, we're using dry ferts. Since we already add 1 teaspoon MgSO4 for each 10 gallons water changed per week, and usually change 25 gallons every week, we add 13.1 g MgSO4 to our tank weekly with the fresh water. The PPS Pro formula calls for adding 20 grams MgSO4 to a 500 ml bottle of solution. Would you recommend not including MgSO4 in our PPS Pro formula? I'm thinking that because PPS Pro only adds daily what the plants need for one day, it wouldn't be harmful to still include MgSO4 in our PPS macro formula.

2) Does anyone have a simple, low cost timer dosing device recommendation for dosing the 2 PPS Pro solutions every day, for when you are traveling? High-end dosing pumps are very expensive. We have an excellent fish feeder which can dose liquid, but it wouldn't hold enough liquid and it's a circular drop-slot model which is open to air flow at the top, and I'm afraid liquid evaporation would be a problem. Ideally the dosing device would mix the solution when dosing, so that doses have even concentrations of nutrients.

hoppycalif

fishstein

Thanks Hoppy. Those would work great and I could build them easily and adjust the flow by the height/lift and with a narrower tube or pinch valve. Anyone know of a digital timer that works down to a 1 min interval or less that is inexpensive and reliable and most importantly won't fail in an ON state, flooding your tank with tons of ferts, possibly killing your fish, overflowing your tank and burning out your pump motors?

Any thoughts on whether I should include MgSO4 in our PPS Pro macro solution?

neilanh

Sorry, I did a much better write up over on AA, which included a link to the timer I used.

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums...on-101464.html

fishstein

Just took a look - very nice Neilanh. Definitely going to build this.

1) Do you recall if the Hamilton timer is available with 3 outlets, or if it can be split without a problem? Going to want to dose PPS Macro, Seachem Flourish for Micro and Excel all at once.

2) What's the GPH/hour flow on your pumps, and how far below the top of your tank do the pumps sit? I might have similarly rated pumps around here that I might be able to use.

3) The container is nicely shaped, but wish it were even a little larger. Anyone see containers out there just like this in a 4L+ size?

How has the system been working for you?

Thought of one small improvement - in addition to fastening the airline tubing at the top of the aquarium, for an added measure of safety you could use a U bracket sitting on the lip of the aquarium to direct the fert liquid flow straight down into the tank, if you can find one in the right size.

Very much looking forward to building this system, but probably have to wait until after an upcoming move to do so.

fishstein

Just saw this cheap low flow Tom pump designed to work with airline tubing on That Fish Place - not sure if I'd trust it to last long though.
http://www.thatpetplace.com/pet/prod/215699/i/1/product

neilanh

1) No, the hamilton timers come in 1 or 2 outlet configurations (that I was able to find). However, I don't think splitting it would be a problem considering the low amperage these pumps pull.

2) The pumps I used are rated for a max of like 150gph. In my setup there's I think 54" of height between their resting place and the height the tubing is set to. I measured 100ml per 1 min cycle with my configuration.

3) I haven't seen 4L. What you want to use, however, is tall and skinny preferably, not short and stout even for a higher volume.

I thought about several methods of safing the system against backflow. This was an easy way to do it, and i have absolutely 0 concern that those tubes are going to get down into the water and cause any backwash issues.

As for those Tom pumps, your link doesn't work but I know what you're talking about. I have a pair of them if you want - lol. I tried them first. They claim a maximum of 30 or 35" head height, and they mean it. They won't push water any higher than that - I tried.

fishstein

LOL, I thought those Tom pumps looked like toys. And at $9 each, what could you expect. I have some old but in great shape Aquaclear 201 powerheads that should be perfect for the job. And I'm thinking a pinch valve on airline tubing would be perfect for setting the flow low enough to use the 3.2L containers for a longer period of time (I'd like each container to go 30 days before refill).

This is a very cool project and a perfect solution to the travel issue. Thanks again!

neilanh

Good luck!

fishstein

So far having excellent results with PPS Pro.

Does anyone think we shouldn't put MgSO4 in our PPS Pro mix if we add 2.5 teaspoons with 25 gallons of water change per week?

Now that we're using PPS Pro instead of EI we will probably reduce water changes to either 10 gallons per week (with 1 teaspoon MgSO4) or 25 gallons once every 2 weeks (with 2.5 teaspoons MgSO4).