Hi all, If the plant thrives there will not be any measurable nitrate or extremely low levels, the plants uptake of other nutrients like heavy metals is just plausible and nothing I was thinking on at that time. My primary reason for having plants would be their ability to take up nitrogen, preferen...

Hi all, If you aerate RO water, more carbon dioxide will dissolve. Water in equilibrium with the air contains ~5 mg carbon dioxide per litre, and has a pH of ~6 (again, I'm too lazy to do the maths) You don't need to do the exact maths, this is close enough. The initial H+ and OH- ions are at pH7 (t...

Hi all, Copper is much more toxic in soft water (low conductivity) then it's in hard water (high conductivity) I tend to agree with Janne and whilst I don't know why the fin damage occurs, I think it is almost certainly a water quality issue. If I was worried about water quality with regard to coppe...

Hi all, it has a ph of 7.4, a kh of 1 & gh of 1, but it also has a high phosphate level, the deepest blue on the test kit i was using. This is because the water company add phosphate to the water to control "plumbosolvency" from lead pipes. The permitted lead levels in the EU for drink...

Hi all, Or even better, befriend a local mushroom growing-place and ask if you can have the old logs? Now there is a good idea. My suspicion would be that for commercial production of Pleurotus they don't always use logs, but compressed straw or saw-dust or possibly even some form of woody waste fro...

Hi all, Yes, as the quote shows Donovan was pretty sure that the Panaques were assimilating the nutrients from fungi within the wood. This wouldn't be that surprising as the Basidiomycota (the "white rotting" Bracket fungi etc) have the ability to preferentially degrade lignin. The fish al...

Hi all, I had some correspondence with Donovan German about his "xylophagous Plec" work. I found it very interesting, because intuitively you would suspect that if teeth like that had evolved, some adaptation to the gut would have occurred as well. Dr German wasn't sure why the gut was so ...

Hi all, Snow is a very efficient remover of particulates (smoke, dust, ammonia etc.) from the atmosphere, particularly when it fall as large flakes at about 0oC. This means that the melted snow may contain more solutes than you would expect in your local rain water. You can use this to your advantag...

Hi all,
You could try rain-water. I've always used it, but I live in a rural area of the SW UK.
cheers Darrel

Hi all, The Eheim Aquaball option is a good one. I use Maxijet powerheads, I've used there pumps and powerheads for a long time for hydroponics, and they are cheap to buy and very reliable. http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr10/dw1305/maxi-jet_attachment.jpg http://i464.photobucket.com/albums/rr10...

Hi all, You could use emerse plants => no worries about co2 then :D You certainly can reduce nitrates with an emersed planted filter, either the over-tank type illustrated, or with floating plants such as "Nile Cabbage"( Pistia ), Water Hyacinth ( Eichornia ), Salvinia etc. We used to do s...

Hi all,

Any one ever seen any crazy algae in their cat only tanks? I recently put some mango in there, maybe that has something to do with it???

I think that it is the fibres from the mango itself, rather than algae. I'd probably try a less ripe mango.

cheers Darrel

Hi all, I won't discuss the other points, but the soft acidic water is also not a success formula. Probably should have made my point a bit clearer, for Tonina fluviatilis & Syngonanthus sp.“Belém” (and other species in the Eriocaulaceae) soft water, acid water with a low dKH are a pre-requisite...

Hi all, Additional CO2 is largely irrelevant to the growth of Tonina , or Syngonanthus sp.“Belém”, what they require is very soft, acid water. Unless you can supply this they won't grow. I like the "Tomato and Orchid" analogy, hydroponic Tomato plants will grow more quicky and produce more...

Hi all, The various posters are right, as long as their is sufficient PAR plants will grow, and the light colour (K value) and CRI are both irrelevant. As UKAPS has been mentioned, I'll put in a plug for it, it is well worth joining if you are interested in planted tanks, and particularly if your ar...

Hi all, There was some work on Panaque nutrition and xylophagy by Dr Donovan German, and I think we had a thread about it? Any way I had some further correspondence with him and this is his summary So, just to summarize what I think these fish are doing… the wood-eating catfishes dig into decaying w...

Hi all, I think Kev has unfortunately had to downsize his tanks and fish, and most of his plecs have gone to other members of "Plecoplanet/Plecoheaven". I'm pretty sure he won't have the L260 for sale any more, as I think they now reside with a well known Bristol Hypancistrus keeper/breede...

Hi all, Has the addition of KNO3 greened the plants up? if it hasn't It's cheaper just to buy bulk chelated iron (DPTA) and add that sounds a good idea and I'd probably suggest that as well. You need to oxidise the iron chelate solution, I usually just do it with an air/pump stone, and either don't ...

Hi all, Lately both my Limnobium and my Lemna started to grow slow. I used to remove loads of these every week. Now I only need to remove them every few weeks. Does this mean my N is decreased, or are there other possible causes (and is my duckweed filter defunct)? Limnobium and Lemna are my only pl...

Hi all, Definitely Limnobium . Almost a year after my first post and I still love duck weed, L. minor. I like Lemna as well, L. minor is easily controllable, because it's growth response to nitrogen is almost linear, if you can reduce the total N in your system, you can reduce or eliminate the Lemna...

I avoid power filters for panaque breeding tanks because they'll clog too fast and be a nitrate bomb. It might be more effective to use large pore sponge filters and syphon the waste out frequently. I'd rather suck it out early and often rather than have it build unseen in a filter. Maybe use a pow...

Hi all First of all, I start with the disclaimer that James has been a much more successful Otocinclus breeder than I was, as mine bred without any intervention and I only found out they had when the surviving fry were sub-adult, but I think the James' first quote is the really important one: I am d...

Hi all, I've been doing it for several years, I only re-culture the mixed cultures about once every 6 months. It started accidentally when I began feeding the old culture media from the micro worms to the grindal worms as an experiment, and found the grindal worms did very well. After a while I noti...

Hi all,
These Hamburg Mattenfilter type filters are very efficient. One of our sponsors uses them extensively.
http://www.swisstropicals.com/Swisstrop ... hroom.html

cheers Darrel

Hi all, I keep separate micro/grindal-worm cultures as well, but I now also mix micro-worms in with my grindal worm cultures as an "insurance". I just add a small amount of the micro-worm culture (I use rolled oats as the culture media for the micro-worms) to the "instant oat cereal&q...

Hi all, Hi Larry, I haven't really escaped from "Apistogramma forums", I just need to post occasionally on PC (where I've lurked for long time), or my membership is culled, and I have to re-join. Yes I think you are right about nitrogen cycle, I always keep planted aquaria, and I'm a bit o...

Hi all,
Thank you for posting this. A lovely planted biotope tank, with a really good choice of plants and fish.
cheers Darrel

Hi all,
Cyperus alternatifolius or Cyperus papyrus are very good emergents for ripariums, in fact you might wish they grew a little less well.
They are both suitable for highly calcareous water.
cheers Darrel

Hi all, I'd agree with Apistomasters comments, black water species normally require low pH and low TDS to breed successfully. Many aquatic plants will grow at pH 5.5, but at these sorts of levels they will all be plants with very low potential growth rates, so fertiliser or CO2 becomes irrelevant. I...

Hi all, I've been a long term lurker on this forum, but I thought I'd say hello, I'm Darrel Watts from nr Bath in the UK. I like PC because it has some very high quality posts on subjects such as catfish in their natural habitats, breeding logs from Harvaard etc. and the latest taxonomy and scientif...