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Watering the aquarium plants.
"Cardman" wrote in message
... On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:41:35 GMT, "Michi Henning" wrote: Well, you could try lots of plants, I am giving that serious consideration, but then that enters a whole new area of caring for plants as well. As until now I just have a handful of plants and let them grow. and slow filter. What type? I run two filters, an Eheim 2128 canister and an Eheim 2012 internal one. The canister is rumoured to contribute to nitrate removal. Apparently, sintered glass contains enough small pores for some anearobic bacteria to break down nitrates. I personally don't know how much credibility this explanation really has. But I know that other fishkeepers and some people at my LFS who've been keeping fish for longer than I have been alive confirm that slower filters are linked to lower nitrate levels. For nitrate breakdown to happen, you need anaerobic areas in the filter, so the slow filter theory makes sense at least from that angle. That will contribute toward reducing nitrates. You also add a denitrification filter. From what I hear, they are a bit finicky though -- the the flow rate too high and they do nothing, and get it too low, and they put hydrogen sulfate into the water. (H2S is toxic.) But such a filter may not be a bad choice given that you have high nitrate levels in your tap water. Yes, where I have already come to the conclusion that I will need to add one of these to my shopping list in the near future. When high Nitrate levels in the tap water is a new thing for me. Aqua Medic make a rather nifty one. My LFS uses one of those for a large marine tank. And he told me that you needn't buy the special bio balls they sell you. Pure sulfur can be had cheaply from chemical suppliers and does the job just as well. Good at removing nitrates and not easily infected by algae. Very true, when it is my third plant that I cannot identify that is suffering some kind of black algae covering to it's leafs. I tried cleaning this off the other day, but it is suck on there very well. Sounds like black brush algae. See http://www.aquaticscape.com/articles/algae.htm for some pictures. I had a feeling that you would mention CO2. :-/ Naturally! :-) I have a feeling that removing Nitrate from my water supply is my current best method for keeping Nitrate levels under control. As I still doubt that these plants will be able to fully deal with the Nitrate production within this aquarium. A reverse osmosis unit really might be a good way to go. They are not that expensive -- around US $130.00 here in Australia, and they do a perfect job of removing the nitrates (as well as all other salts). Cheers, Michi. -- Michi Henning Ph: +61 4 1118-2700 ZeroC, Inc. http://www.zeroc.com |
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