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Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
kush
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?


Gary Dawg wrote ...

Can't imagine how bad
it would be in a month, never mind a year.


Not bad at all. In fact, if you have a glass-bottomed tank on an open-top
stand you can look and see. I have a tank that's been up, I think, seven
years and there is a whole 'nother happy, healthy ecosystem going on under
the filter plates. Remember, the nitrifying bacteria are breaking down all
that mulm and shipping it back up the risers into the water column to feed
our plants.

You can definitely keep your gravel squeaky clean and that works, too, but
you're throwing away valuable fertilizer. Besides, I don't like working
that hard.


  #47   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
Robert Flory
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?


"linda mar" wrote in message
...

"Robert Flory" wrote in message
.com...

snip

My 55 was clear enough to see from one end to another in a couple of

hours.
I rinsed my filters and got gobs of goop. Unfortunately clearing the
problems wasn't as easy, but after a week of reduced feedings things are
remaining clear. Now I use it when every I stir things up.


what kind of filter do you use? I doubled up my sponge block on the
Aquaclear, and it take out incredible amount of goop, but obviously it's

not
fine enough.


Just generic pads I get at the LFS and cut to fit. same sort you are using
I suspect. The flocculent is what does the trick. All the fine stuff
clumps together and gets filtered out easier.

Bob





  #48   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
Robert Flory
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?


"linda mar" wrote in message
...
Hi Kush,

what about the stuff accumulating under the plates? is it ok to leave

those
there? my tank is sitting on a wooden stand, so I can't see under the

tank,
but I was cleaning the UGF uptake tube using the bottle brush since I was
clearing the intake of the powerheads anyway (brown slimey stuff that
accumulated on the intake was clogging it a bit, and while I was at it, I
decided that the otos won't get to the algae growing inside the tube,
so...), and the suction the brush made drew up a lot of the brown fluffly
stuff from under the plate... I assume there is more where those stuff

came
from...
snip


The stuff under the plates is only likely to be a problem if you shut off
the UGF without cleaning it out and develop a anaerobic environment (no
oxygen) that leads to H2S and trouble.

DIY CO2 is really simple. I just installed one, granted I don't have a good
control on the injection rate, that goes in tomorrow, but It is working
water is fine. I just have to use a air bubbler to keep the CO2 level from
going overboard. I've had plants grow over and inch in two days.

Bob


  #49   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
kush
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?


linda mar wrote ...

should I air-bubble it overnight? or just leave it sitting?


Either way, a couple of gallons should entirely outgas overnight,
particularly if you start with hot water.

waaa :-( too much hardware... my tank is essentially free-standing, so
more tubes will not be easily routed, not to mention not much floor space
left inside the tank...


Don't sweat it. A 2-liter juice bottle with an airline from the cap
straight to your powerhead, that's it. You can set the juice bottle on top
of the tank. We'll talk about it later. How big is the tank?


  #50   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
Robert Flory
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?


"linda mar" wrote in message
...
hi,

SNIP

i've heard of this sulfur/sulfide toxin.. does anyone know how long will

it
be ok before things start going anaerobic? (I'm thinking about several

hours
worth of power failure.. not shutting it off on purpose) or is this one of
those YMMV thing...?

I'm out of my league here, but I suspect that it would take more than a
couple of hours, but a heavy organic load could go anaerobic pretty fast.
The question is how long it would take to produce enough H2S to cause
problems. That I don't know.

Bob




  #51   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
Robert Flory
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?

brewers yeast and sugar, unless you want to go fancy and use wine yeast,
then you can filter it and drink it when you are done, or so some claim.

Bob
"linda mar" wrote in message
...
Hi,

should I air-bubble it overnight? or just leave it sitting?


Either way, a couple of gallons should entirely outgas overnight,
particularly if you start with hot water.


ok. hot water.. will let you know how it turns out...

waaa :-( too much hardware... my tank is essentially free-standing,

so
more tubes will not be easily routed, not to mention not much floor

space
left inside the tank...


Don't sweat it. A 2-liter juice bottle with an airline from the cap
straight to your powerhead, that's it. You can set the juice bottle on

top
of the tank. We'll talk about it later. How big is the tank?


tank is 37G (footprint is equivalent to 29G.. 30x12x22)..

hmm 2-liter soda bottle on top of tank? not sure about that one.. aside
from the aesthetics, given how flimsy the plastic center brace of the tank
is, I'd be a little hesitant to put more weight on top of it.. (I'm not
entirely convinced that the glass hood and the light fixture isn't already
over-stressing it.. not very sturdy... I wish I had known about other tank
manufacturers other than AGA that doesn't have center brace for this size
tank... oh well). aside from that, the only space left on top would be
where I open the lid to feed fish... would using something like Flourish
Excel be better? I guess that just gets too expensive after a while...

will
bottle under the tank with one-way check valve work instead of putting on
top? I assume this is some sort of yeast brew?

may be shutting out the sunlight completely for a week in the room will
clear the water :-P and not worry about CO2 :-P (one can always hope!).

oh.
the tank doesn't get direct sunlight, but the room is pretty bright...
(large windows)

linda




  #52   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
Jody
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?

I had green water once, and a friend of mine recently had the hazy look you
describe. What worked for me was covering the tank with a blanket for about
3 days. No lights, no food, and everyone survived. It worked for both of
us, so you might give it a shot.

Jody

"linda mar" wrote in message
...
Dear experts..

I've been having hazy water ever since the first day I put fish in the

tank,
with some dose of "Cycle" as recommende by LFS and the bottle. it's not
completely cloudy, but hazy.. just enough to be very useful to get some
depth perception photo between the foreground leaves and background

leaves..

I've finished cycling for several weeks, algae is under control, ammonia

and
nitrite=0 (still waiting to get my nitrate test kit). The water is

slightly
alkaline (pH somewhere between 7.5 and 8 depending on who tests it) and
relatively soft (never tested, but based on municipal water report dH~4 or
so), and is kept around 78F. I just bought the freshwater test kit, so
starting this water change cycle, I will be able to run a battery of test

to
monitor the water condition (low dH/gH has potential pH crash worries..)

Tank cycled using UGF using a relatively coarse pea-sized gravel about 2in
thick, powered by two power heads (aquaclear 201's). The power head

spouts
are tilted enough to cause some surface agitation (lots of ripples), but
does not use venturi. I have added a HOT power filter hoping to

supplement
mechanical filtering after the tank finished cycling (aquaclear200. two
foam blocks, no carbon) hoping it would help clear the water better (no

such
luck). Tank is moderately to heavily planted, and moderately stocked.

(the
cloudiness was there even when very lightly stocked and no plants, so.).

I
have some bogwoods in the tank (some tannin leeching, but that's ok.
Decided yellowish water by itself doesn't bother me.. just the haze)

Starting this weekend, I've decided to do some systematic cleaning over

the
next few weeks, to see if I can somehow get the water to clear up more. I
know hazy water doesn't hurt the fish, but it's just that I envy my

favorite
LFSs' crystal-clear tanks (some even have real plants, and they still look
very very clear. only murky tanks are when they're cleaning the tank, or

the
feeder fish tank..), and the fact that the other two smaller tanks we have
are very clear (eclipse hood). so, cloudy water=something not quite
optimal..

Here is the list I've come up with that I should try to address, and see

if
the water will clear up. I was hoping the experts on this group can point
me to other places to investigate (or just tell me to give up if the
following effort doesn't pan out):

1. water changes
I do 20%-25% water change every 2 weeks ever since the tank has cycled (I
target 15-20%, but seems to end up taking out more water than I intended
when using siphon-style gravel vac..). Obviously this in itself hasn't
helped much in clearing out water
2. gravel vac
I just bought the air-pump activated gravel vac, so I can do more thorough
vacumming (the siphon vac took out water too quickly). I hope to remove

as
much plant debris, and other detritus from the gravel and plants, without
malnutritioning the plants. (will be putting root tabs soon)
3. UGF maintenance
try to siphon out some of the gunk accumulating underneath the UGF plating
(use narrow tubing and shove it under the plate through the uplift tube
opening). Last time I got lots of brownish goo out... I guess the

substrate
is too coarse and letting lots of detrius get trapped under the plating,

oh
well.. next time i'll get something better)
3. plant cleaning
remove all deteriorating leaves on all stem plants, continue to vacuum out
crud that accumulates on fine-leaved plants (acting as a filter!)
4. foam filter on powerfilter
take out and clean (not used for biological filter yet) often. May be add

a
finer filter floss? (what size mesh? I see 50um or 100um particle traps)?
5. add aqua-clear type particle coagulator for more efficient mechanical
filtering.

are there other things I should look at to see how I can increase the

water
clarity without hurting the ecosystem? I assume normal gravel

vac/siphoning
under UGF plating won't hurt the beneficial bacteria. I won't clean the
power filter and UGF at the same time (will stagger cleaning timing) to
assure that the bacteria colony isn't completely destroyed.

linda





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Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
LM
 
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Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?

Hi Jody,

Thank you for your reply. so your friend's hazy tank cleared up with 3days
of no light? (just wanted to make sure.. I understand green water being
algae) Has your friend's water been clear since? or does he/she have to do
the black-out occasionally to keep it clear?

thanks!

linda


----------
In article , "Jody"
wrote:


I had green water once, and a friend of mine recently had the hazy look you
describe. What worked for me was covering the tank with a blanket for about
3 days. No lights, no food, and everyone survived. It worked for both of
us, so you might give it a shot.

Jody

  #54   Report Post  
Old 20-04-2003, 06:56 AM
Jody
 
Posts: n/a
Default effort in clearing up hazy water... will this do?

It has been over a week now, and the haze has not returned. From what he
told me, it was just this milky, hazy kind of appearance. It never became
green. When it happened to me, it started as hazy then changed to green. I
have had no reoccurence, and that was probably 3+ years ago.

HTH,
Jody

"LM" wrote in message
...
Hi Jody,

Thank you for your reply. so your friend's hazy tank cleared up with

3days
of no light? (just wanted to make sure.. I understand green water being
algae) Has your friend's water been clear since? or does he/she have to

do
the black-out occasionally to keep it clear?

thanks!

linda


----------
In article , "Jody"
wrote:


I had green water once, and a friend of mine recently had the hazy look

you
describe. What worked for me was covering the tank with a blanket for

about
3 days. No lights, no food, and everyone survived. It worked for both

of
us, so you might give it a shot.

Jody




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