Palmfiber Peat soaked in Chemicult as a substrate.

thanks prof, i thought that might be the case (rusting too quickly)
its not a problem then, i do have a paintcan full of "useless" rusted nails in the garden\tool shed.
i'll add some of those to the undergravel pfp then, at least there will be some use for it.

On the needing to fertilize the water column as well, i am aware that the pfp wont be enough, but at least some fert in the soil will be better than my current substrate which is very heavy, large granuled gravel that plants have a very hard time rooting in. i'm planning on capping the pfp with a mix of silica sand and this gravel i have (just to add a more natural colour to the bottom

i still wish to get my hands on your ferts prof, is there someone on the forum who lives in pta/jhb who orders some from you regularly, then i might add to an existing order and spare some postage hassle for you?

 

No problems with the postage hassle, I do this all the time. Send me a PM with your private email address so that I can send you my pricelist and info as an attachment.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi Prof

Thanks for your time and answer. I am very confused at the moment about the u g filters being a time bomb. I use them in all my setups together with built in bio filters 4 stage, filter wool, lava rock ,ceramic tubes, bio balls ). My community setup is 650 liters heavily planted and have been going for more than 5 years without dissmanteling i connected the risers of the ug to a 1500l/h powerhead from where the water is pumped to the biofilter (80liter). I just about never do water changes , just top ups. The plants seem to thrive on all the muck wich seem to get biodegraded , and the fish are doing well , havent had any sickness in more than a year. All i had dying on me was guppies i bought recently that died in quarantine before even making the tank.(40 liter quarantine tank)

Maybe i belong in a museum with the filters.

Riaan.

 

Hi Riaan,

Perhaps you should tell us a little more. Where are you based so that I can assess what your tap water conditions should be, what your fish load is, and if you can give us some more details about your filtration. I don't quite understand your setup because you say you have u g filters but then biofilters with all the other goodies in them. What sort of filters are these? What sort of plants do you grow?

Perhaps we can then decide into which museum we must put you........

I never say there is not a different way to do things so let us know.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

hi Prof,

setup as follow

i am from Middelburg mp our tap water is on the hard side i use 50/50 tap and RO water, the tap water i treat with tetra aquasafe

u g filter on bottom of glass to cover complete tank covered by 75-150mm of pool filter sand.all riser pipes from filterplates (where normally airstones lift water) are connected with 20mm tubing just above gravel. This is connected to a submersable pump (1500l/h) so the water is pumped from underneath the gravel to top of the 1st chamber of next filter.

the whole left side of the tank is partisioned into 4 chambers each aprox 125x200x900 with glass. The three middel partitions being shorter to allow water to pass from 1 under to 2 then over to 3 then under to 4 from where it overflow back into tank. 1st chamber loaded with tray at bottom hanging on nylon strings (for easy removel to replace wool) sponge on tray and filled with filterwool (this chamber receive water from pump totop) 2nd chamber has big airstone at bottom and then filled to top with alvagrog (looks like lavarock) 3rd filled with same 4th has airstone at bottom and filled with mix of cerramic tubes(made by myself clay mixed with sawdust then rolled swiss roll like into small tubes with thick paper between layers then cut shorter and fired in kiln to burn away sawdust and paper to give nice pourous tubes)and eheim "bioballs" i had at the time. This chamber overlow onto the tank again.

at the back of the tank i have a long airstone(wall of air) almost the length of the tank

the plants i do not know the names i just buy nice plants i like the ones that do not do well i discard . i have about 15 different species from tiny to tall and some floating ones as well (no floaters with big leafs i do not like to much light block out)The sides and back is very densely planted with a few small(grass and moss and fern like) ones to the front to give you more or less an idea you can almost not see the back pane of the tank.

on top of that i have 4 x 5 feet tubes (2 growlight and 2 daylight) that i keep 0n for approx 16 hours/day

my fishload
6 dwarf gourami 4 blue gouramy 5 pearl gourami 2 pink kissers (My wife like)
7 angels 2 plecos 1 black gost ( eat out of my hand) 20+ neons 4 balas 3 red tail shark and last but not least +- 40 guppys. as you can see nothing very fancy but i like . they mostly get tetras complete diet the gost i feed mostly earthworm

maybe you can organise for me to keep one tank at the museum???

i am setting up a new tank i got Thats why i asked about the palmfiber but i admit i didnt think it over propperly with all the water flowing it will leach out in no time

thanks
Riaan

 

Palmfiber Peat

Hi Prof, i was wondering if i could find out more about your wonder liquid fertilisers. Where to find and how much etc etc.
Sounds very interesting.

 

Welcome to the Forum Juls..

It would be great for you to go introduce yourself in the new members section.

sure prof will help you out though.


EDIT**: see Zoom, not that hard to be nice to new kids

 

Juls best is to buy from Prof directly (Situated in Somerset) or from Fishnook situated in Goodwood. Contact Veegal for prices

 

TX... taking over my role there I see.

 

all yours bud.. just messing around hey

 

Hi Guys
Apologies for my rudeness.
My name is julie and I am new to this forum.
I am freinds with Darryn he has got me hooked onto this new substrate fertilising thing. i have a 1.2m tank. I am currently in the process of changing my entire setup.
I had a good couple of large / agro fish, like clown knife fish, polyopterus, rope fish, oscar, malawi's etc..
i am know changing everything frok substrate to fish etc etc.
Need a bit of a change.

 

Welcome to Tasa buddy

 

Hey Julie, you've come to the right place for advice ^^,
Welcome

 

Hi JulsM2908,

Check out the thread on my forum on gauranteed analysis if you need more info about my ferts http://www.tropicalaquarium.co.za/showthread.php?t=2727 . If you need some send me a PM with your private email address so that I can send you a mail with my pricelist as an attachment.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

hi prof.
I have a question regarding pfp. I am moving in two weeks so I am going to reset my tank with the move . with regard to the chemicult soaked pfp . I plan to cap it with river sand . I have a normal spiny eel and he tends to dig. if he digs could the chemicult be harmfull to him? or could it release harmful chemicals into my tank ? my eel is small still (10 cm) but when bigger he could dig quite deep . so how thick should my layer of river sand be ? or should I just place pfp soaked in chemicult directly under plants and avoid the places where he would dig?
to be clear he digs to hide in the sand and spends the whole day hidden like this
thank you

 

Hi Brads,

To answer your question, the chemicult will not harm your spiny eel. Palm fibre peat is lighter than the gravel so if your eel digs into it and if it gets to the surface of the gravel then it will spread around the tank. If you have a strong water flow and a strong filter the pfp may end up blocking your filter. However, I would try and then just remove the pfp as the eel causes it to come out of the substrate. The benefits of the pfp for the plants are enormous, so I would still try in spite of the eel.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Hi, I've been wanting to try the pfp/chemicult in a little tank with Banjo Cats, who dig all the time! What I though about doing was my layer of pfp, then cutting some green shade cloth (the type made up of long thin threads all running parallel to each other, with about 1mm of flexible space in between the threads. It's green,if that helps.) to keep the stuff down, then a 1cm layer of 4mm pea gravel, then 1.5cm of riversand for the banjos to dig in. Would that help, I don't think they can get through the gravel, so would the shade cloth be necessary? Would it help keep the pfp down, or would it just be detrimental. Your thoughts, prof?

Thanks

 

Hi Gaawie,

I do not see why this should not work, but you need to be a little careful with river sand because it does not let any circulation through it and this may be detrimental.

Kind regards,

Dirk

 

Thanks Dirk, what do you recommend that I use...?

 

Pool Filter sand everytime!! Allows airflow better than most substrates.

My main concern with using this green net barrier would be whether the Banjo's Barbs (or whiskers) would get caught in the mesh??

I'd also try and give 2-3cm of sand for the Banjo's to dig in rather than 1 or 1.5cm!

Just my thoughts!!

Cheers
G!