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#46
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 |
#53
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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
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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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