# Feel like giving up



## jhemlow (Oct 24, 2004)

Hi I've been at aquaria for 2 years now. I have a 33 gallon aquarium with the following:

Microsorum Pteroperus
Microsorum Pteroperus Windolev
Echindorus Rubrus

11 Neon Tetras 
1 Clown loach 
30 Ghost Shrimp

60Watts Fluorescent light

DIY Co2 with the crappy Hagen Ladder
Normal substrate

I am very active on this website, I usually browse the forums once a day. Therefore I know in general the things that I have to do to get my aquarium under control but am very overwhelmed at the thought of where to start. I know the first thing everyone is going to say is to tell them my parameters etc but I always feel my test kits are terribly innacurate. I'm also going to be told that I need more CO2 but I am a student and cannot really afford more effective means of getting CO2 into my tank. 

My woes began when I tried to use the EI from what I read on the internet (Tom Barr's website) which did not work at all. Therefore I am not dosing any macros / micros right now because I really don't know what I'm doing. My tank is completely covered in goupy black alage (not sure what kind) I have tried a black out but this did nothing. Anyways, I was hoping I could arrange with someone to chat with me via MSN or e-mail or even phone lol to help me get my aquarium back under control. Also I would like someone to explain to me how I can use my macros in the proper manner so I don't get crazy alage blooms again. Please let me know! Thank you,

A very frustrated hobbyist,

Jason


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## niko (Jan 28, 2004)

Jason,

The advice about how to fertilize your tank will differ from person to person. But I believe everyone will agree that you must reset the tank.

I personally have reset my tanks many times due to stupid experimenting, lazyness, neglect, and of course not knowing what I'm doing most of the time. In the process I've learned a few things that one must do when resetting the tank. The 2 main things are:
*A. Disturb the bacteria as little as possible.*
*B.* Temporarily reduce N and P as low as possible.[/b]

Steps to reset a tank:
*1.* Remove the plants and clean them from algae. Cut and remove the badly infested leaves. You may end up with much less plant mass but it will be clean. Store them in ziplock bags with no water until you put them back in the tank.

*2.* Carefully (slowly) pull out all plant roots that are left in the substrate. Try to disturb the subtrate as little as possible. If you leave big clumps of roots in the substrate they will rot and produce a poisonous gas (SO2) that can kill plants and fish. If you disturb the substrate too much you will disturb the bacteria in it - something that you do not want to do when you reset a tank.

*3.* Remove all algae manually. Scrub the glass and the silicone. Suck out the substrate grains that have algae attached to them.

*4.*Remove all decorations (wood, rocks). Leave the gravel in.

*5.* Do not vacuum the gravel. Do not stir it to get the "dirt" out. Carefully even it out.

*6.* Let the filter circulate the tank for some time so the mulm settles on the substrate.

*7.* Make a small water change - not more than 20% - while carefully sucking the settled mulm with a small size hose that gives you enough time to suck all the mulm without removing too much water. The idea behind a small water change is to not risk distrurbing the bacteria with a big water change.

*8.* Do not open and clean your filter because that usually badly stresses the bacteria. The filter flow may diminish. If you need more flow add a powerhead in the tank so it circulates well. Let the tank circulate for a day or two. You may aerate - it should only help the bacteria break down waste.

*9.* Scrub the glass from possible accumulated debries or algae. Suck any mulm or debries that have settled. Change as little water as possible, again with the idea to not disturb the bacteria.

*10.* Add Active Carbon to the tank. If you have a powerhead that you can use to run the water through the Carbon that'd be better than opening your filter and putting the bag of Carbon in it. The filter will spit out a lot of debries during the priming. Plus you want to keep the bacteria completely intact.

*11.* Run the CO2 and make sure it's stable. Discard the ladder and use a 1/4" of chopstick placed by a tiny jet of water that helps pulverize the bubbles. Here are reference pictures how to do that:

















*12.* Add the decorations and the plants.

*13.* 3 days later do a 30-40% water change with water that you know for sure does not contain N or P.

*14.* A day later carefully clean the mechanical media of your filter. Do not touch the biological media at all. Don't remove the Active Carbon either.

*15.* Change the water every 3 days as in item (13).

At that point your tank is reset. You have removed the algae mechanically. You have reduced the debries/mulm without disturbing the bacteria too much. You have cleaned your mechanical filter with minimal disturbance of the bacteria. The Active Carbon will absorb at least part of the different wastes that were and still continue to be accumulated in the water.

The most important detail in all this is to make sure you are not adding N or P with your tap water. Your goal is to completely eliminate the N and P for some time.

If you keep up with the water changes you will notice that the plants start to starve. At that point you need to be ready to fertilize - have all chemicals ready and know how much of each you need to add to reach a target concentration.

What fertilization approach you will choose from that point on is up to you. I personally would start to feed the plants minor amounts of Fe/Traces every day. I'd keep KH at about 3-5, GH about 2-4, definitely add Magnesium, and definitely add Potassium to at least 15 ppm. Small additons of Fe/Traces 2-3 times a day. No excess of N or P in the water.

Hope that helps.

Frustration is part of this hobby, you are not the only one to experience it. Look at the disappointments with an open mind and you will learn from them.

--Nikolay


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## jhemlow (Oct 24, 2004)

*Thanks Niko*

Alright I'm sufficiently motivated to restart my tank, however I'm not going to do it until I fully understant how to go about fertilizing my tank. I have:

KH2PO4
KNO3
K2SO4

In addition I have a few Nutrafin test kits, the KH/GH one is expired now and I really lack the funds to buy new test kits. Can someone explain to me how exactly I go about dosing, MSN would be better because I'm going to have a lot of questions. I've tried this all before with disatrous results, people make it sound so easy 

THanks again,

Slightly less frustrated,

Jason


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## jhemlow (Oct 24, 2004)

*Help has arrived*

Niko has graciously offered to help me with my dwindling hopes of reviving my tank. As per his directions I'm asking if anyone has some plant mass they'd be able to ship me? I'm a student and wish I could buy some more plants for this "reset" that I'll be doing.

Aparently there are some that throw out large quantities of plants, hopefully I could be shipped some of these, I may be able to help with some shipping, but money is an issue.

I don't expect much to come of this request, but any help would be much appreciated,

Jason


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## BryceM (Nov 6, 2005)

jhemlow,

Where are you? I could ship out some of my more common plants that should be easy enough to grow. I've got H. leukocephala, corkscrew val, dwarf sag, rotala rotundifola, and myrio that are all growing faster than I'd like. The only hard part is shipping in and out of cold weather country.

Could you cover the cost of shipping? It'll probably be about $5.00 priority mail.


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## Dewmazz (Sep 6, 2005)

Thanks for the advice niko. My 10 gal. has been hit hard by BBA and I recently retro-fitted my eclipse explorer II with good lighting. I was thinking about "transferring" my tank to the nano after trimming the plants. Along with my brother moving out, I get to open-up the sliding wall between his room and mine, so I 'm going to be doing a lot of indoor remodeling. I figured I reset the tank then. Can I use the old substrate when I re-plant the nano?


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## Dunga (Nov 7, 2005)

Hi!

My 25 gal tank is runing ok! It's 1 year old and no algae issues at this time.
I'm using Flourish ( 6 drops a day) , tetra florapride ( 4 drops a day) and the most important to me: Flourish EXCEL ( 2,5 ml a day). I don't use any co2 and my lighting is 2 x 20 watts grolux (T12) on for 12 hours .










December 2005 photo, new photos coming soon.

Best

Dunga


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