120 liter - Journaling the journey!

9886 Views 107 Replies 5 Participants Last post by dwalstad, 8 mo ago

spaquarista

Discussion Starter · Aug 11, 2021 (Edited)

Hi everyone, decided to keep a sort of online journal here, if that's ok! Wanted to share how it's been going, now that it's been...oh dear, a few months now? With my El Natural set up.

How it started:

I quickly realize there wasn't nearly enough plants, I had to resort to putting in carbon in the filter to help stabalize everything. I haven't had to change it yet, the idea is that as the carbon wears out/gets old, there will be enough plant growth to really put things in check.

So this is how it's going:

I get some light nitrite readings (below .25 ppm) after I clean any part of my filter, which I have to do every so often because it gets so gunky, the flow starts being too weak.

I have new lights which are probably considered medium intensity because even the red plants in the middle foreground (not sure the name of them!) are starting to perk up and stopped loosing leaves.

At first there was some brown "algae" but that went away a few weeks ago and now with the new lights there's been a growth of hairy/stringy algae. It's not too intense, but I did do a manual clean up and shortened the light schedule by two hours (one in the morning and one at night, continueing with a 4 hour siesta inbetween)

I think things are going along quite well, the fish are doing wonderfully, however they seem skittish around me, I think they are a bit traumatized with my constant hands in the water, always planting new things from the last couple of months but I'm slowly gaining their trust again with every feeding, heh.

Edit.
Wanted to share something interesting, I read that cutting jungle val at the top of the leaves doesn't mean it grows back, but mine have almost with every trim!

Also these two leaves which are particularly dark (excessive nutrients??), I thought were dieing but after cutting them they are already back at the surface.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #61 · Dec 18, 2021

I saw someone ask about pictures of trumpet snails, but I don't see the post anymore. Anyways, here's a link to two fotos. They are absolutely everywhere you look in the substrate. There's a lot of ramshorns too but they don't reproduce so quickly. The pond snails have no luck in this tank, I find their shells empty everywhere, probably the pleco snacks on them.

0 new items by Laisa Bellomo-Johnson

photos.app.goo.gl

0 new items by Laisa Bellomo-Johnson

photos.app.goo.gl

johnwesley0

· #62 · Dec 18, 2021

spaquarista said:
I saw someone ask about pictures of trumpet snails, but I don't see the post anymore.

Yeah, that was me. I deleted it because I wasn't sure if you were coming back.LOL. Thanks. I'm fascinated by your snail situation. I stand by my first answer. If the pleco is killing off the pond snails, the trumpet snails may be your next best housekeepers. I understand they multiply at the merest hint of extra food, but if they don't turn you off aesthetically, I'd let them alone.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #63 · Dec 19, 2021 (Edited)

I don't mind them at all, but i do admit i often wonder when too much is too much, heh.

With my shrimp tank i think there was an explosion of baby pond snails at a time when the plants were still adapting. In this 120lt I'm just wondering if over fed them recently together with plants stalling a bit.

Anyway, it's amonia/nitrite levels are not the biggest problem ever, just made me wonder what could be happening.

spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #64 · Dec 19, 2021 (Edited)

I finally got new test strips (6 in 1) that has nitrate and nitrite readings! But now I ran into a scary problem which is diverging results. I've underlined the results that show the biggest difference.

The readings for my 120 liter tank WERE as follows with the liquid tests:
Brand: Labcon
Nitrite - .25
Amonia - <.25
gH - 9
kH - 3
pH (brand of the test: Nutricon) - 7.4

The readings from the new Colombo brand 6 in 1 test strip are:

Nitrate - <10 (but not quite 0)
Nitrite - <0.5 (not quite 0)
gH - >7
kH - 6
pH - 6.4

The pH reading is extremely different!! The Nutricon liquid test read my tap water as pH 8.4 and now the Colombo strip says it's 6.8.

I found a Brasilian aquarist group on facebook and posted about this issue, since they will have more knowledge with these brands and be able to suggest brands that are available here without importing, but I decided to post this issue here as well. I couldn't find a recent thread on comparing test brands and divergent readings, sorry if there is something on this topic already.

Edit. I just wanted to vent my frustration, the Colombo kit is imported and was more expensive than the Labcon/Nutricon brands. I found an even more expensive imported brands- Tropica and API 6 in 1 test strips brand. Would anyone recommend those??

I found the liquid API tests, but the pH test alone is R$140 reais - which is what I paid for the 6 in 1 tests. The Nutricon pH test are R$30, so you get the idea of the price diferençe...I've avoided having to buy imported, but I had no idea the accuracy on these things could be so different and I don't know if more expensive is really a sign of better in this case.

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johnwesley0

· #65 · Dec 19, 2021

You're going to drive yourself crazy once you go down that rabbit hole of liquid tests versus test strips and different testing results. Pick one method and stick with it. Personally, I find liquid tests easier to read, but they come at the cost of a lot of dripping and shaking. And, of all the tests, PH is IMO (in my opinion), the least important past a certain point. I haven't tested my PH in over a month. The bottom line is always how does your tank look? Are the fish swimming around happily? Are the plants growing? Everything else is just confirming what you can see with your own eyes.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #66 · Dec 19, 2021

That was about the best reply I could have hoped for, thank you! Everyone is happy and healthy and the pH readings (whatever the pH might actually be) has been stable in all the tanks for months.

(Except the shrimps, but I posted about that else where, I've been treating them already.)

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mistergreen

· #67 · Dec 19, 2021

Digital pH pens are pretty accurate. You can calibrate them with packets of known pH salts.
they don’t last very long though. After a long time of not using it, the reading swing wildly.

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johnwesley0

· #68 · Dec 20, 2021

LOL. In that case, I have to start using mine more.

mistergreen

· #69 · Dec 20, 2021

johnwesley0 said:
LOL. In that case, I have to start using mine more.

Yeah, there's a liquid in the pH sensor that exchanges ions into the surrounding water. I guess something goes wrong with it after a while.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #70 · Dec 20, 2021

mistergreen said:
Digital pH pens are pretty accurate. You can calibrate them with packets of known pH salts.
they don’t last very long though. After a long time of not using it, the reading swing wildly.

Yes, that's what someone in the Facebook group suggested. Someone also said Nutricon pH test readings reallly do tend to be too high so, good to know!

johnwesley0

· #71 · Dec 20, 2021

Well, looks like my digital PH pen has died. Tested a water sample last night and it came up with a wildly improbable 5.0 (and, yes, an enormous amount of blinking before settling on a number.) Previous tests had been averaging in the high 7s. This morning, using the same water sample, I broke open the two liquid tests that come with the API Master kit. The only thing I don't like about these PH tests is that if the sample is above 7.4, you are caught in this nether region where your results are off the charts as far as the "regular" test is concerned but may overlap the lower end of the "high range" PH test kit. Bottom line: I think I'm still in the high 7s - possibly 8. But, I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

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mistergreen

· #72 · Dec 20, 2021

Try changing your battery before throwing out the pen. Low voltage can cause blinking and swings.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #73 · Dec 23, 2021

I decided to get the pH pen, and the readings are similar to what the tests strips were registering. This is a relief honestly, the idea of having pH 8.6 coming out of my tap water was disturbing me!!

As much as everyone says not to worry about it...the first six months when I used another test kit, I had neutral (7.2) tap water and now the test strips and the pen both confirmed that.

So now I discovered my 120 lt aquarium is actually pH 6.8 and the other three aquariums are around 7.2-7.5.

spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #74 · Jan 29, 2022

Happy new year everyone!

Recently where I live here in São Paulo, there has been so much rain and so many power outages, I can say that I am so relieved to have naturally planted tanks because I was able to rest easy knowing the power outages didn't pose a problem to the fish.

Here`s a nice photo of how my 120 liter tank is looking, after a heavy trimming of the jungle val and removing 50% of the duckweed yesterday.

There are absolutely no more elodeas anymore, I slowly removed them all, since most of them ended up floating. The camboba is finding it's space in the corner, I replant the trimmings so it's becoming more filled out.

I`m considering slowly taking out the not-so-red-anymore-ludwigia as the dwarf sag take over. Anyways, details. Needless to say, I highly enjoy the aquascaping aspect of the hobby!

Plant Property Botany Light Green

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #75 · Mar 5, 2022 (Edited)

Hello everyone! I'm posting today because I'm trying to figure out why some of my plants are growing with some holes (which the snails are taking advantage of and making bigger). Here are just a couple of imagens but there's some plants with holes similar across the board on all my aquariums so I'm pretty sure it's the fact that my water is soft and I only dosed with calcium and sodium bicarbonate.

I looked up the "recipe for hardness" and figured I should add potassium and magnesium to help the plants. Am I right to assume so?

I looked up salt of potassium, salt substitute, but it has Iodine in it, can anyone tell me if that's normal and safe, or not? The amounts: in 1g of the salt there is 490 mg of potassium and 24 mcg of iodine.

If I'm diluting it, will the Iodine be safe? I read that it's normal for salt water tanks to have it and at such trace amounts won't hurt freshwater fish, but this is just me googling, so I'd like to know if this is true.

Thanks for any input, I read through the Hardness Recipe thread and didn't seem anyone else mention this issue with potassium salt with iodine.

Plant Houseplant Botany Terrestrial plant Grass

Plant Leaf Terrestrial plant Groundcover Grass

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johnwesley0

· #76 · Mar 5, 2022

I've had pretty good success with just potassium gluconate purchased from any vitamin aisle. A 99 mg tablet will dissolve pretty quickly, or you can crush it with a pestle. In my experience, I only had to dose it once before getting results.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #77 · Mar 5, 2022

Thanks! I didn't have any luck finding it in any of the pharmacies around here but I found it online! Hurray for the internet!

mistergreen

· #78 · Mar 5, 2022

If you're buying potassium tablets, might as well stick a few tablets in the soil too. They sell it in powder form as well. It dissolves in water instantly.

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spaquarista

Discussion Starter · #79 · Mar 5, 2022 (Edited)

Oh, that's interesting! Good technique. I did buy them in tablet form. Is there some sort of recommended ratio of how many tablets per gallon? My aquariums are 4, 10, 20 and 30 gallons.

Edit- To keep in the spirit of journaling about my 120 liter aquarium, I feel like sharing the sad news that about a month ago one of my Rosy Barbs died, she had an extremely swollen belly one day and didn't make it. I'm at a total loss as to what caused it, but just in case it was from constipation, I made everyone in that aquarium fast for a day and then gave them veggies. Although no other fish was exhibiting such swollen bellies.

This caused an upset with the remaining four Rosies, they kept nipping at each other a lot... so considering also the fact that the male Rosy is already over 5 years old (he was gifted to me, the reason I got into this whole hobby to begin with!!) I decided to get two more Rosies, a male and female.

My boyfriend successfully identified a male Rosy from the fish store, I was shocked! During quarantine he was totally pale but today we put both of them in the main tank and, lo and behind, he colored right up and dark black appeared on his fins! So the group of 6 are hanging out right now, totally at peace, no more bullying and fin nipping.

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johnwesley0

· #80 · Mar 5, 2022

spaquarista said:
Oh, that's interesting! Good technique. I did buy them in tablet form. Is there some sort of recommended ratio of how many tablets per gallon? My aquariums are 4, 10, 20 and 30 gallons.

I have a porcelain bowl that I estimate is about 10 gallons when full; it's probably at 7 or 8 gallons now and 1 tablet was all I needed - and, even then I think I experienced a slight algae bloom that the bladder snails quickly took care of.

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