The Beginning...

That's the spirit! Excellent - you've done well, now just try and figure out where the particles came from in the first place!

The stockings won't harm your fish, certainly not in a 24hour period until you can get some floss or batting - its actually easier to work with the batting and its really cheap so is really a simpler option.

 

The difference in the clarity of my water this morning is amazing! Still very small white particles visible but I'm hoping the batting will sort that out.

I have no idea what could be causing the white particles aside from the brown algae or the garlic in the frozen food that I'm feeding them. I can really not see it unless I have my nose plastered to the tank, but since that is one of my favorite things to do, the particles annoy the living daylights out of me.

Thanks @tracyp - you've really been a great help!

I did my first EI dosing yesterday, hoping that will help my plants along a bit. Getting rid of the brown algae in my tank will probably also go a long way towards promoting growth in my tank.

 

How are you dosing EI Dinky?

 

@nicolaas

I used a calculator thing that told me how much is needed for my tank. Just doing the NPK for now, I've added a bit of Flourish Excel that covers the amount of Iron that I need. Will do the Calcium and Magnesium when I've been round to the store.

Will send you a pm with the details.

 

Dinky, my pleasure, glad I could help.

I'm a bit puzzled though, Excel is a carbon source as I understand it? Where did you find that it is an iron source? (I dashed off to inspect my bottle, and see no reference to Iron?) Please do set me right if I've missed something!!!

 

Lol! No, I don't think you've missed it. I just suspect that it's not in such amounts that it's worth mentioning.

I used the EI calculator and it gives trace amounts of iron when I introduce excel to the mix. I require 0.1 Iron and when I put 3ml of Excel into the cooking pot it made up the required Iron for me.

This is what it had to say on its site about Excel and Iron but to me it means absolutely nothing. Could just as well have been in some foreign language.

Flourish Excel™ also has iron reducing properties which promote the ferrous state of iron (Fe[SUP]+2[/SUP]), which is more easily utilized by plants than ferric iron (Fe[SUP]+3[/SUP]).

Maybe it's got something to do with the combination of products. This is waaaaaay beyond my field of knowledge and I register a total blank when things get technical.

I'm still not very comfortable adding the excel to my tank at all, but reckon at 3ml per 500ml mix, added in 100ml doses to a 100 liter tank....should be safe enough. I've watched my fish closely, no glancing. (It does however only seem to affect my platy - maybe there's something about platy that does not tolerate excel very well)

The clarity on my tank this morning is just amazing! I can see it from my desk and keep on staring at it instead of paying attention to what I'm working on! Lol!

 

Giggle! That actually does make sense - not that I'm a chemist, but I understand.

I have noticed my khulis react adversely if I add Excel to their tank, so I don't use it a great deal. But I will add that hundreds of ppl have used it without noticing any affects on their fish, so...

 

Aside from what the Proff wrote on the subject I can also not find very much negative info with regards to the product and can only speak from personal experience.

After I added today's dosage, my platy began flashing again. I guess there's just something in it they don't like. Will just leave it out of my next mixture completely. That will leave me stuck with one and a half bottles of the stuff.

I've added the batting to the filter and secured a piece around the intake as well. Huge amount of gunk collected already, but after fiddling with the filter most the gunk in there ended up in the tank again. I will probably have to replace it once or twice a day but if it gets the little white specks out of my tank it will be so worth it.

 

Hi @Dinky invest in an Inturnal power filter. I was. Going to recommend a cannister filter but they can be expensive. And since your tank is about 100l power filter will be fine. Only use it for mechanical filtration then remove as your hang on will do the rest. This is what I did on a 3 foot before I invested in a cannister.

 

@dash

Thank you very much for the advice. How many liters per hour should the internal filter be? I had to google internal filters and see they also come in different liters per hour. My hang on is 800 liters but that's a very strong current.

 

Well if your hang on is 800lph then that is really good. You may not require the power filter then. Filter floss works like magic.

 

@Dinky just a word of warning with you using ei dosing, EI is actually meant for tanks that run co2 I would not dose the full amounts. I would rather only dose 50ml instead of the 100ml if your plants cannot use up all the ferts then you will eventually have to much off everything which could cause excess algae. Please make sure if you dont already have a nitrate and phosphate test kit to get one. So you can monitor and see if your plants actually use up all the ferts. With using co2 you need more lights and then the plants use up all the ferts quicker as the combination of medium to high lights forces the plants to use up all the ferts quicker.

I would suggest you at least add some source of co2 in your tank which is Seachem excel it is a liquid carbon source.

And yes you need to get yourself a interal filter to make sure that all the ferts gets to the plants and for this you need good movement in your tank, all the plant must be swaying nicely in the current.

HTH and good luck.

 

@dash

I'm really very clueless when it comes to these things. 800lph is supposedly very good, but if I compare the clarity of my water in this tank to the clarity in my tanks running with ugf I'm left disappointed. There's still some small, white particles flowing in the water. Thanks to @tracyp I actually learned this week that there's chemical, biological and mechanical filtration. (slowly but surely getting somewhere)

Would an internal filter add benefit to my current system? And could I, since the external filter is so strong, just get for instance a lower output internal one? Any recommendations as to brand / type?

 

Hmmm...seems to me this co2 thing is conspiring against me! Lol!

Thanks once again for explaining things and giving me a little bit more clarity. I really appreciate. I do spend a huge amount of time trying to read up on these things but most of the articles out there just fly over my head!

Great, I'll decrease my dosage to 50%. I do use Excel and there's 3ml of that added to my NPK mixture. Should that be sufficient or do I need to up that a bit? If I calculate correctly I should use 2.5ml every other day - the 3ml would fall short of that but I'm a bit cautious of the product due to the debate on the effect on the fish...

As for the filtration / movement in my tank, I have the following going on this side:

* 800 l/h Hob filter on a 100 liter tank - 60l x 35w x 48h - positioned in the middle of the tank back
* Boyu SF-100 Biochemical Sponge Filter in the back left hand corner
* Airstone in the back right hand corner

There is a noticeable but light sway in the plants, checked the ones right at the front bottom. Got some hm growing on the bottom there.

 

Hi because it's only a 100l tank, I would not add another filter. The flow will be to strong. The only way us filter floss and we need to find out what is causing those particles.

 

Dinky jy sal nooit spuit wees oor co2 nie :nurse: I think you already know more than me of these ferts stuff lol, ek sal moet minder tyd spandeur op die ps3 en meer te doen kry met navorsing . Ook nog iets wat ek gesien het, n lps in George , hy dose al flourish se ferts, , sy tank groei onsetend great met net ferts en selfte ligte as ek, en sonder co2 doen hy goed, het gesien hoe die tank pearl ook . Ek gaan vandag die ander 5 bottles kry :banghead: Dis net mal duur maar hou lank . Maar ek is bly oor die co2 en ada en nie spuit nie. Die foxes maak net baie stof in die ada as hul kos in die hande kry :stupid:

 

Yeah Co2 is the bomb if you can afford it go for it, all your plants will be growing much more healthier and will also be much happier LOL.

Only a pleasure, no I would add the recommended dosage 3 times a week it does make a huge difference. The small amount added to your npk mix is just their so it wont go off.

Well just as long as your plants are swaying a bit then all is good.

Good luck.

 

Hey Marius go EI dude much cheaper and works much better for the plants. @Dinky sorry for hijacking your thread.

 

Looks good - looking forward to the pics when the tank is full! Nice fish choices!

 

@hviviers75 I already got it, just hope it grows way better . Dinky jys darm maar skaars met die fotos hoor :smile1: