cal's FW tank lessons learned

[Anonymous]

you're an idiot who doesn't even understand simple math, and have no business being on a fishkeeping bulletin board

i will dog every post you make to make all aware of how dangerous you are to this hobby

your post above has so many errors i don't even know where to begin-but i'll take just one teeeeny example:

I know this is hard to comprehend, but any water fit for human consumption can by used for any aqaurium or pond with these techniques

really? does that include chlorinated water ? :lol:

shut yer piehole :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

Vitz, while i am with you on this, please, easy on the flame, if nothing else, just to keep you calm!

Bob, how do you know what you ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate level's are, when you have freely admitted you don't even test the tank

now, i can see that and experienced aquarist can, if he keeps an eye on the levels in the tank and such, be able to keep it balanced with some work, but only if they knew what they are doing, noobs don't, as a rule. i don't mean that to be patronising, but speaking from experience, therefore, to tell then, from the off it is possible means that they could loose the fish, meaning undue suffering to the fish, and for them to loose loads of money.

to not test the tank is just preposterous, even at the local aquarium where my GF works, they still do manual tests on the tank's water qualities, and they have contacts and conections to the countries top aquarists, if they still do it, what makes you think you don't need to???

 

[Anonymous]

Yes vitz even chlorinated water. and chlorimine also.

Vitz, while i am with you on this, please, easy on the flame, if nothing else, just to keep you calm!

Bob, how do you know what you ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate level's are, when you have freely admitted you don't even test the tank

I do test all my tank. I only use test kits on the salt tank though. For instance, the first fish I used to consider sacrificial. Until I discovered that if I don't add food it survived that first week. I look at the tank.

now, i can see that and experienced aquarist can, if he keeps an eye on the levels in the tank and such, be able to keep it balanced with some work, but only if they knew what they are doing, noobs don't, as a rule. i don't mean that to be patronising, but speaking from experience, therefore, to tell then, from the off it is possible means that they could loose the fish, meaning undue suffering to the fish, and for them to loose loads of money.

to not test the tank is just preposterous, even at the local aquarium where my GF works, they still do manual tests on the tank's water qualities, and they have contacts and conections to the countries top aquarists, if they still do it, what makes you think you don't need to???

Experience.

Plus the feedback I get from people who do test.

Test kits are notoriously inaccurate. For instance, my 55g mixed reef routinely tests .25-.5 ppm ammonia. Yet fish and soft worals have lived for over 3 years. Nitrate test kits can vary by a factor of 4 depenging on what type of ntrates are being measured.

So a newbie with a 10g tank from mommy and daddy's money, or a college student has choice. They buy $20 of testing or $20 of live plants. There money IME is better spent on the plants.

What they should not do is conduct massive water changes because ammonia just tested at .25 ppm. Or if nitrItes have spiked up to 3 ppm. Instead, overwhelm the system with living thriving plants, stop adding food, do no water changes until the nitrItes come back down. Without the test kit do it for a week.


But just my experience.

 

[Anonymous]

Test kits are notoriously inaccurate. For instance, my 55g mixed reef routinely tests .25-.5 ppm ammonia.

Yeah, when water parameters read as if they are askew, and especially when your methods involve doing things that are just plain...umm...well a few words come to mind, but anyway... yeah, it always means that the test kit isn't working...that's it for sure....

 

[Anonymous]

Vitz, while i am with you on this, please, easy on the flame, if nothing else, just to keep you calm!

Yes vitz even chlorinated water. and chlorimine also.

:lol: :roll:

you want people on rdo to preach that chlorine is safe for fish to noobs, or even to experts?

he should get a room w/naesco :lol: :evil:

 

[Anonymous]

Just to be clear.

What I am saying is that if you start with a 10g tank and:

1) start the tank with lotsa plants
2) let it set for a week
3) add a single male live bearer
4) don't add food for a week
5) add a mate and start feeding a single flake per day.

you have 20-30 fish six months later and that population is stable for the next 6 years.

I have done that in 1/2 dozen cites in the US since the late 70's and the results were always the same.

I routinely take a gallon of cold tap water that has been ran for a minute and add it to all my tanks (including the mixed reef marine tank) to replace evaporative water every couple of days.

What I am saying is that method works. As Cal and osboy have demonstrated.

 

[Anonymous]

you have 20-30 fish six months later and that population is stable for the next 6 years.

whereas, if you do as everyone else here does, you can keep the populations stable indefinately, deaths from old age asside

 

[Anonymous]

you have 20-30 fish six months later and that population is stable for the next 6 years.

whereas, if you do as everyone else here does, you can keep the populations stable indefinately, deaths from old age asside

Just reporting my actual experience. I suspect that tank could run much longer that that. But that is just my actual experience.

 

[Anonymous]

you see i would like to see if i could study this, sort of a scientific experiment, but then i realise i couldn't willingly cause such stress to fish.

i still feel a little guilty for flushing those rust brown flatworm down the sink

 

[Anonymous]

you see i would like to see if i could study this, sort of a scientific experiment, but then i realise i couldn't willingly cause such stress to fish.

i still feel a little guilty for flushing those rust brown flatworm down the sink

To me this is not experiment. It is the standard.

All you would need is a 10g, sand, plants, and 20w NO light.

Or even just a 1 gal pickle jar.

But once you see the active reproducing fish last for years you realize this is not stressful to the fish.

.02

 

[tazdevil]

Bob, how are you not getting a serious increase in CO2 levels at night when the lights go off? Unless I missed something, you said very little in the way of circulation pumps, and no external filters. Without the gas exchange, I'd have to believe at night your CO2 levels would rise, potentially dangerously. If you have only Livebearers, I could see them surviving by gulping air, although they would show serious signs of lack of oxygen. Just considering the fact that with lights off plants will change from O2 production to CO2 production.

 

[Anonymous]

Bob, how are you not getting a serious increase in CO2 levels at night when the lights go off? Unless I missed something, you said very little in the way of circulation pumps, and no external filters. Without the gas exchange, I'd have to believe at night your CO2 levels would rise, potentially dangerously. If you have only Livebearers, I could see them surviving by gulping air, although they would show serious signs of lack of oxygen. Just considering the fact that with lights off plants will change from O2 production to CO2 production.

Yep you are absolutly right. 1) there is no increase in gas exchange due to mechanical pumps. 2) there is undoubtly a "serious" increase in CO2 at night. Could be even many many multiples of the daytime co2 levels.

Yet the tanks have ran for up to 6 years IME with no fish breathing heavy.

I had on my 55g salt tank a daytime ph of 7.4 or lower. I would add baking soda and ph rose to 8.4 the next day and a week later was down to 7.4 again. I add macros and the daytime ph rose to and has stayed at 8.4 for three the last years. Nighttime ph (the one time I measured) it was at 7.9. And newly added fish started thriving instead of dieing.

So what must be happening is the plants are consuming co2 and producing oxygen such that the tank becomes a net consumer of carbon dioxide and producer of oxygen in a 24 hour period. As measured in the salt tank that means that the max level of co2 is still much lower then the minimum co2 without the plants. So the the drastic rise in night time co2 is still much less dangerous than the non planted co2 levels.

And the fish are healthier even with the night time ph drop.

Just as happens in lakes, bays, and shallow parts of the ocean. All of which have night time ph drops.


.02

 

[Anonymous]

now i know who wrote all of the petco care manuals that they hand out to their customers

beasle! :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Yep you are absolutly right. 1) there is no increase in gas exchange due to mechanical pumps. 2) there is undoubtly a "serious" increase in CO2 at night. Could be even many many multiples of the daytime co2 levels.

Yet the tanks have ran for up to 6 years IME with no fish breathing heavy.

I had on my 55g salt tank a daytime ph of 7.4 or lower. I would add baking soda and ph rose to 8.4 the next day and a week later was down to 7.4 again. I add macros and the daytime ph rose to and has stayed at 8.4 for three the last years. Nighttime ph (the one time I measured) it was at 7.9. And newly added fish started thriving instead of dieing.

So what must be happening is the plants are consuming co2 and producing oxygen such that the tank becomes a net consumer of carbon dioxide and producer of oxygen in a 24 hour period. As measured in the salt tank that means that the max level of co2 is still much lower then the minimum co2 without the plants. So the the drastic rise in night time co2 is still much less dangerous than the non planted co2 levels.

And the fish are healthier even with the night time ph drop.

Just as happens in lakes, bays, and shallow parts of the ocean. All of which have night time ph drops

oh. my. god.

not only are you so ignorant that you don't run filters or water changes, but you also freely admit that you allow you fish to swim in carbonic acid, and seem proud of it?!

 

[tazdevil]

So what must be happening is the plants are consuming co2 and producing oxygen such that the tank becomes a net consumer of carbon dioxide and producer of oxygen in a 24 hour period. As measured in the salt tank that means that the max level of co2 is still much lower then the minimum co2 without the plants. So the the drastic rise in night time co2 is still much less dangerous than the non planted co2 levels.

There's the reason people have problem with this Bob, your assuming this is what's happening. In a tank with no plants, and high filtration, you have a high level of gas exchange at the surface due to turbulence. At night, with or without plants, but with either filters or some sort of water motion that causes turbulence, you will have a minimal CO2 rise (and this is easily measurable) as the gas exchange is ALWAYS occuring (unless the turbulence is interrupted, or the earth runs out of oxygen). In a tank with plants, but no means of water circulation that causes turbulence, you will get dangerous levels of CO2 buildup, which may also cause a PH crash, at the minimum will stress the fish.

You use the lake etc. analogy. Lakes overgrown with Algae, and various normal or invasive plants have had fish kills due to this effect (some will have a constant enough fresh water source to negate this-streams etc.). The oceans and bays always have some form of turbulence at the surface. I have seen lakes with this exact fish kill situation, one recently from overgrowth of Eurasian Water Milfoil, that was "land locked" and had no source of fresh water, other than rainwater runoff.

The livebearers can manage this much better than non-livebearers due to their ability to literally gulp air from the surface. Do you have anything in the planted tanks other than Livebearers or bottom cats/plecos?

 

[Anonymous]

taz dude. we tried to explain all this before.

we tried, we failed. i give up. there is no getting through.




i can't say that it doesn't upset me, knowing that there are fish suffering needlessly, i did my best for the little guys

 

[Anonymous]

I know it is hard to believe for people who have to have the industry equipment to maintain their tanks.

Yet it works as cal and osboy found out.

The fish are not breathing heavy, active, making babies and have plenty of food.

So yet someone who has not seen that and absolutely must have fillters, massive water flow, do constant water changes simply can not comprehend that it works.

but then I have seen it work in 1/2 dozen cities in the us with a stable population of 20-30 live bearers in a 10g tank for up to 6 years.

my .02

 

[Anonymous]

I know it is hard to believe for people who have to have the industry equipment to maintain their tanks.

If by "industry equipment" you mean decades of experience in this hobby with a greater diversity of fish species with vastly different requirements, or common sense, or the wisdom to refute the inane ramblings of someone who can only manage to post a picture of a cesspool sometime last year, and hasn't posted anything since, then I think these people all agree.

 

[Anonymous]

I know it is hard to believe for people who have to have the industry equipment to maintain their tanks.

If by "industry equipment" you mean decades of experience in this hobby with a greater diversity of fish species with vastly different requirements, or common sense, or the wisdom to refute the inane ramblings of someone who can only manage to post a picture of a cesspool sometime last year, and hasn't posted anything since, then I these people all agree.

I'm sorry you consider cal's tank and osboy's tank a cesspool.

And I'll let the viewer's of the pictures osboy has posted and the pictures on this thread judge for themselves.

 

[Anonymous]

I speak of your tank Bob.