i heard that carbon is a must in the filter, why is that so??

This post has been edited by nismo87: Sep 17 2010, 05:25 PM

For planted tank,I think using carbon in the filter is not suitable. Carbon removes many harmful elements from your aquarium, such as: copper, chlorine, dissolved proteins, and carbohydrates . Also, activated carbon can make your aquarium look so clear by removing discolorants. But the bad thing is, carbon also remove all the essential nutrients that the plant need in fertilizer.

So, how does one control the accumulation of unwanted colors or aromas from the aquarium? After all, any aquarium tends to build up a “yellow” color with time. The answer is regular water changes. With regular partial water change, we can maintain healthy aquarium environment without using carbon .

not bad in fact, for a "messy" start up...

I like the plants, very healthy...

But I think would look better if the background not blue, cause it don't seem natural...

Thanks bro. Just trim my messy tank hehe..

Hmm..yup u right. It would be better if no background . Thanks for the heads up

Indeed nice =), do we need to change the soil after a long run?

Hi, I just bought a 2.5kg CO2 system from Mudah. Including regulator, valve and bubble counter.

But I found the pressure shown in the regulator is not consistent, sometimes 1100psi, sometime drop to 500psi.

And I tried to set the bubble to 1bps, but after a while the bubble stop and the water in bubble counter back flow. How do you guys adjust the regulator to fix the bubble to 1bps?

This is the first time I use CO2 tank. I connect the regulator to the CO2 tank, then connect to check valve, then bubble counter then diffuser. Is it correct?

most ADA soil can last for 2 years plus... if u wanna push the limit, ur plants will get less healthy lo...
most people will top up with new soil when the rescape... if the substrate is too high, can scoop some of the old soil out and top up with new one... not necessary to change everything as u will eliminate the bacteria colony inside....

watch out for unstable water parameters after topping up with new soil... i wiped out all my RCS when i did last time...

make sure no leaks...
make sure the solenoid is working well... and not ticking (means on/off periodically according to its mood)....

how much u get the 2.5L tank included solenoid valve?

U need 2 check valves.. 1 is between tank n bubble counter, the other is between counter n diffuser. It is difficult to set the output bps from a newly filled tank because of the high pressure. Make sure the main valve is always open. Through time it will be much easier to adjust the bps.

Bro i took ur advice bout the background and remove it...yup its look more natural now

I like... I like...

rachu7 might share more details of ur tank ? like how many liter of water, using wat filter? lighting set how much of watt, 2bps ?

mine one is manual regulator. Tank=180, regulator=70, check valve+bubble counter=16, + delivery
=10. Altogether RM276.

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Added on September 18, 2010, 8:40 pmHow to know whether got leak? just now i open the main valve bigger, and after 1 hour I found the manual regulator got water and very cold. is it leaking causing the regulator become cold?

This post has been edited by maxtrix: Sep 18 2010, 08:40 PM

that happened b4 d last time I collected some hydrilla long long long time ago. Luckily it was dead XD
Anyway, yesterday I dipped twice in dilute bleach, left in clean water over night, then 2day soaked in potassium permanganate for 10 minutes then rinse. so far found and threw away 1 snail, I think it was dead. Should be very very clean now so i'm just leaving it for a few days more b4 putting into my tank.

just thought i'd post my tank pic up here. still looks vy boring, you can see the betta chilling out at bottom right corner. I have a small school of neons still in QT, and the dwarf hairgrass was just planted a few days ago. Hope it grows. For some reason my attempt at java moss failed last time even tho the java fern is growing and making baby ferns like crazy

This post has been edited by tigermom: Sep 18 2010, 10:45 PM


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Err... How much is the flow rate of your HOB filter??? And how many liter is your tank??? Care to give the specification of your tank???
Cause it looks very small for the tank...

150/h
10 gallons
nh3 0.5mg/l (weird...it was 0 the last time i checked)
no2 0
no3 10
ph 6~7 (used ph paper)

The filter came with the tank long long time ago(like 7 years i think). The store set up the tank for us. lack of knowledge about aquarium care + blur blur blur = gave up on it. I took up the hobby again after reading up more about it. Assumed that the filter was ok for the tank since it came from the store with it....am I doing it wrong...?

edit: checked my past records of tank water. Ammonia went up to 0.5 before but went back down to 0 and stayed like that

This post has been edited by tigermom: Sep 18 2010, 11:38 PM

is this some kind of algae attack or nutrient defiency? Cause im doing quite frequent water change lately, every 2 days, 30% wc.

ur pic helped me to memories back my form5 science subject.

nitrogen : yellow leaf
potassium : yellowing at edge of leaf with dead spot
phosphorus : dark green leaf

great question that can makes me do a revision.

Green Spot algae. loads of nutrition and lights to go around. COmmon in a slow growing plant planted in hi tech tank LOL.