OK, thanks for all the advice. I will make some changes as per your guy's
suggestions and repost in a week or so and see how my Nitrite and Phosphate
levels are doing. And I'll be getting a Python. I didn't realize they were
so great. The bucket thing does get old. haha

Also, I have all the stuff to make a PMDD solution. I've had it for a month
or so and want to start using it. However, should I be using this only in
conjuction with a compressed CO2 setup?

thanks.

"LeighMo" wrote in message
...
LeighMo, so you are saying since I match at the lowest testable level on
my
Nitrite test, I have too much Nitrite?...so any measureable amount of
Nitrite is bad??

YES. Any measurable nitrite means something is wrong. The level you have
is
enough to be fatal to fish over long periods.

I thought my Eheim 2028 with 2 trays of ceramic and 1 tray
of efimech would supply more than enough bio life for the tank. what are
your thoughts?

Did you do anything that might have affected your biological filter?
Clean it,
use antibiotics in the tank? If not, your tank may be overstocked, or you
may
be overfeeding. You don't have a lot of fish, but some of them are pretty
big.

I haven't done anything at all to the filter in months and I have not used
any med's either. Thinking back, I probably caused this problem when I
slacked on the fronzen foods and fed mostly dry foods for a few weeks. I'll
also only feed fronze foods during the next couple of weeks and see how
things work out.



I have a couple of options for reducing the light. I can either:

1) turn off 2 of the 65w bulbs
2) leave both on, but reduce the number of hours
3) reduce the amount of time the second set of lights comes on

what would be best?

Turn off some of the bulbs. Changing the lighting duration won't make a
difference. You don't want to go less than 10 hours.

OK


i know my Vals and Sags will slow their growth way down
if they don't get lots of light.

True, but they'll still grow. They are plants that do fine at moderate
lighting levels.

Can a compressed system be kept to
look decent and not have a bunch of bulky crap in the tank? does anyone
have pictures of their compressed setups?

You could inject the CO2 directly into the Eheim filter intake. The only
extra
thing in your tank would be a few inches of thin, transparent airline
tubing.


The bad thing about all of this is that I am going to be out of country for
2 weeks next month and then have to move across the street as soon as I get
back. My tank will have to be broken down completely. =( It's been up
well over a year. =( =(

later.




Leigh

http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/