# Water quality



## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

i don't know where to put this so i'm guessing here.

watching my tank, watching my plants, watching my snail, ... oh boy, i've got lots of snails

no CO2, have a bubbler, and water pump... i'm pretty sure i've got lots of O2 in the tank.

reading about problems i'm seeing and something comes to mind.

plants want CO2, failing that they can strip out CO2 from calcium bi-carbonate in the water.

my snail shells (malaysian trumpet snails) the tips are degrading more than i'm comfortable with. still nothing compared to pictures i'm seeing online, it's just the ends of the tips i'm seeing eroded. normally i wouldn't be too concerned seeing this on the larger snails (1"+) but i've noticed a few medium sized (about half that) whos shell tips are noticeable, maybe i'm being overly cautious, but i'm a little concerned.

the mini-ramshorn & pond snails, that have notriously thin shells, appear fine for the most part. one mini- was missing almost all it's shell and acting strange (not moving but acting like it was eating)

maybe i crushed the mini- accidently. doesn't help me feel better at all 

but some other thoughts came to mind, ... if my CO2 is low, low enough the plants are trying to strip CO2 from compounds in the water (that may also contain calcium) and i've got ... conservative guess, ... over 200 of each snail in there, more likely easily over 300 of each (less for pond snails, i did quite a number on their population about a month ago).

now is it likely the plants are stripping CO2 from compounds in the water ?
could this be softening the water ?
could this be lowering the PH of the water.

am i jumping to conclusions ?
if not and this is going on, ... what do i do to increase the hardness of my water ? (the rest is adjustable)
quick recent search that satisfies another curiosity, ... apparently the bio-filter is a great source of CO2.

first planted tank for me, ... so it's all areas i'm new to.
yes those who have read other posts by me, i am trying to make a self-sustaining tank, goes above and beyond "hey, now i've got plants", so this may sound like "why is he asking such questions taking on such a project", ... never forget the basics


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

Hello!

What's your water like to begin with? And what is it like now?

Going off on a philosophical tangent... I think for any ecosystem, it has to find its own balance. With normal aquariums we're always trying to tip that balance in favour of aesthethics, fish welfare, that sort of thing. But if your aim is fully self-sustainance maybe the thing is to let it sort itself out. Maybe 200 snails is way too much, and there will have to be some deaths before the right population is achieved. Just a thought! 
Then there's partial intervention, of course. Not sure where you stand at the moment.

Cheers!

Marianne


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

it's the 'some' deaths that i'd like to avoid

some searching yesterday, i'm thinking of finding some coral rock for the tank, not normally something to consider in a freshwater tank, i know.

as for what the water is like, ... honestly i have no idea 

i know that's part of the "sort-itself-out" part of things.

asthetics in the tank, plants on one side, completly hodge-podge, rocks, wood, places to hide on the other side, again just hodge-podge

fish health is definitly the slant i'm putting into it.

it's a very understocked tank, so i don't expect the ammonia & nitrates and such will be high at all, plants are taking over.

the algae was fine up to a point, then it reached that "out of control" level, now i'm seeing how i can get rid of it.

the usual fertalizer for dealing with algae, ... sounds like that's banned in canada here, something about it can be used in making explosives, ... they don't mention you need a truck full of it to cause damage to a house though.

lots of info on the net about what favors algae, not near as much info about "once you have it ...."

oh ya, it's 200+ snails each, ... makes for well over 600 in a 29 gallon tank. maybe it's just the snails competing with other snails for available calcium.

i do want to use this tank to learn what real factors i have to consider when i start the round 90 gallon i want to build. use what i learned from this tank to keep things real while i research the internet till one of us is exhausted.

but yes, definitly putting my slant towards fish health & plant health.

like many people are trying to create an enriched substrate for the plants, i'm looking at more the plankton level for the building blocks of the food-chain, not going to ignore the findings of others, i can take it easy in those areas as they're doing the research there freeing up some time i can put towards other areas.

a glowing tank would be neat though , so far that's only saltwater .

last i had water checked by the LFS it was great, low everything, would have been about a month into it's cycle as a new tank. i had no doubt, low fish volumn, high plant volumn. it's been about 2-3 months now and done second water change (quite out of concern for the algae)

i do appreciate the reminder though, i should get the water tested again, if it's good i'll stick with that # for consistancy, if it's not good, i need to get my own kit for testing.


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

and an odd thought, ... do shrimp eat dead snails ?
i've got no shrimp now, but it's been bugging me to get some. that i could do for algae control if i could find some reliable answers on what eats staghorn algae. sounds like most things don't touch it. the few reports of what does ... some say yes, others say no. ... not reliable 

lots of "these water conditions favor this algae, ... well it's not like the water holds up a sign and invites certain algae to the party when the conditions are right.

in the cases of particular algae appearing, there's even less info about "does the algae do well in those situations, or will the algae help balance out these deficiences or imbalances. everything is worded as "this water favors this algae", ... that's hard to make sense of. easier to understand "this algae favors these water conditions", but even then the answer of why is never answers, just a general consensus of "you don't want it"

sadly the algae came from somewhere, could be the air, could be the branches i was handling outside or the metal railing. the tanks are going to get their fair share of every algae out there, and the water isn't deciding what stays and what is evicted.

once you've got a particular type of algae, again there's little info on correcting it. other than peroxide and/or excel (haven't looked into that). and the "if you don't correct the underlying issue the algae will come back"

nothing about 'under these changed circumstances the algae may die off on it's own" which if a particular water imbalance favors a particular algae, correcting that the algae shouldn't be happy and leave. ... doubt i'm going to see a trail of algae left behind as it's walked out of my tank looking for the next invite though


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## mariannep (Mar 18, 2012)

I agree it's very frustrating as there's never enough info (for my taste, anyway).

One of the best algae lists I've found is:
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_freshwater_algae.php

I gather that as long as they say what an algae likes... you can assume it'll dislike the opposite. As in... algae that favour low light -> increase light and so on. With zoospores the consensus seems to be it's best to let it die on its own. The problem is some can switch nutrients... 
At any rate I think most ecosystems have some algae and we shouldn't expect a natural-ish balanced tank to not have any (unless you spend lots of time removing it). Some I even find quite appealing.

I think your snail population is way too much, so maybe the shells will settle once the population does. If you have low everything maybe you can try some hardening stuff, going slowly. Or just wait and see if it really needs action.

What fish do you have? The "on its own" ponds we keep have goldfish and they usually keep the snails in check. They do not eat the adults but I believe they eat enough of the eggs to keep snails to a level where you really have to look for them. These goldfish refuse artificial food and that's why we basically do nothing to the things except change water from time to time (not often).

AFAIK, shrimp do not eat dead snails, but some snails do, as well as some bottom feeders (I plan to add some kuhlii loaches to my main tank to get rid of dead shrimp and such). But I've mostly read about red cherry shrimp, others may, no idea.

Cheers!


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

> i do want to use this tank to learn what real factors i have to consider when i start the round 90 gallon i want to build.


Get a test kit that includes GH, KH. 
Get a TDS meter.

SOME plants can use the carbon in carbonates as a source of carbon. They only switch to this mode when the CO2 is exhausted. 
Nitrifying bacteria use the carbon from carbonates.

If either of these processes go on with out the carbonated being replenished then the tank can develop Old Tank Syndrome: Lowering pH, KH approaching zero, and the death of the nitrifying bacteria, leading to an ammonia spike.

Carbonates are one of the most common buffers of pH in the aquarium. If the carbonates are present in low levels then the pH is more apt to vary, and will often be rather low, on the acidic side of neutral. The acidic water is bad for the snails, causing MTS to have blunted tips, and thinner shelled species may have extremely thin shells that crack too easily.

KH tests will tell you how the carbonates are changing over time, so you will know if you need to supplement. 
GH tests will tell you how the calcium and magnesium are doing. This test does not tell you individually Ca or Mg levels, just a combined result. If you are having problems with this you might want a separate test for Mg.

Try adding a cuttle bone to the tank, or parts of one. Some snails may rasp it directly. 
This has nothing to do with how much calcium is present.


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

don't have the tests yet, ... i know i need to get them, an upcoming move suggests money better saved for other things.

but just as well, after the move if i'm doing things the same, i can expect the same situation to repeat itself. first check after moving though is important to get the tests needed.

found a site that listed calcium carbonate has a native PH of 11 something, ...

going on theory, the plants are stripping out the CO2 from the carbonate, the snails aren't getting enough calcium to go around, the less carbonte in the system the PH drops, the water softens, the snail shells deteriorate.

am looking into finding ways to increase CO2, ... Malaysian trumpet snails, blackworms, tubifex worms, ... these can all increase the depth of the aerobic layer in the tank. finer gravel provide more surface area for the beneficial bacteria as well.

and parts of me are questioning, i may want more fish than what i've got in there too.

from the plants pearling (if i got that term right), i've got more O2 in there than they know how to deal with.

got a bubbler running (8" rod), i honestly do not know if it's better to leave that on or turn it off.

i think it was on this forum Diana Walstad was bringing up questions about bubblers and other things that allow diffusion of O2 & CO2 in the tank, ... (not that i doubt her at all), the bits i read from that she was questioning such things as the tendancy to lower CO2, ... not a particularly smart thing in a planted tank. my question was (didn't post it, it was an old thread), while the bubbler's actions of breaking the water surface may diffuse CO2 out of the water, won't it also add CO2 ?

so i'm looking at a GH, a KH, a PH, and a CO2 test kit to give me an idea of what's going on from all angles.
(do they make a CO2 test kit ?)

too bad snail shells don't grow back, , or i'd know if i was fixing the problem sooner than later 

did add a cuttle bone to the tank. it eases "part" of my worries.

but yes, Dianna K, like yourself i was on the same line of thought, i gotta get some accurate tests going on because relying on "well the snail shells seem to be degrading" will tell me what's going on, but no idea where the problem is starting from. got a lot of snails in the tank, got a fair bit of plants in the tank (nothing like some of the planted tanks i've seen online though), the start of the problem could be anywhere from too many snails, water quality is just wrong for them, to the plants are striping out the CO2 (leading to "water quality is just wrong")

and yes, a dreaded ammonia spike is the next dissaster on the list if snails start dropping dead, or as you said, it messes with the beneficial bacteria in the tank, .... dead is dead, doesn't matter how big the organism was does it.

2 months ago when i got this aquarium i though "i can take this on", now i'm like a kid in a candy store (looking at fish & plants) going "look at that, look at that, and look at that over there, i want that, and that, and this too"

not going to give up or discourage me from my goal, but the distractions sure are fun.

the other bunch of tests for other nutrients i know i'll be getting when i look into building a higher nutrient substrate, but for now, this is enough to keep me busy


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## ferchu22 (Oct 27, 2007)

Hi Flear:
I don't know about your tank size and your number of fishes, but I guess that your problem could be the Malaysian Snails. They may help for substrate aeration, but they also leave their waste in your tank, and maybe that's the reason of the water quality. I use to have the same problem plus a high fish population. I removed most of the snails (almost all of them), and leave just 5 little fishes in a 120L tank, Malaysian Snails are very prolific, and maybe that could became a high population problem. Now my plants are in great conditions, and growing better than ever, I'm sure that one of the secrets is very low fish and snail population, and many plants. We can't compare ours tanks with nature, but in nature the fish and snail population is really slow compared with ours aquariums, you can bet for it.
BR,


ESent from my BlackBerry 9300 using Tapatalk


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

Ferchu, agreed.

spawning aside, i don't think anything in nature gets the fish density close to anyone's aquariums. even before we were harvesting the pretty fishes from their wild homes.

yes, malaysian snails leave waste, they also eat waste to assist in breaking it down a little more.

looking up stuff for deep sand beds for freshwater aquariums, ... most of what i'm finding is all theoretical or those who don't want to believe it. those that are doing such already tend to speak favorably. from the theory i'm reading, it sounds like many who have had success with walstad's methods who have then had an accident and horrid/dangerous smells come out of their tank, usually after rearranging things, are already doing the same stuff. but that needs more research to seperate co-incidences from proof.


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

ferchu, ... it's also hard to identify what the source is when changing more than one thing at a time.

you changed snails & fish populations.

that changed ammonia, CO2, O2, available Calcium, PH, Kh, Gh, Nitrates & Nitrites, waste levels being produced, and other things in the tank who's niches in the aquarium eco-system depend on those.

but for your tank, ammonia, Kh, PH, in significant quanties as less fish and less snails both.

people say i think too much, ... i don't think so, i think i just consider more things than may appear relevant 

i may butt heads with people, but almost always they've got good advice i can't ignore

the people i ignore have totally different ideas that are often easily appearent they are poorly thought out and only spoken in belief because it sounds right to them.


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

CO2 and O2 levels, and to bubble or not... 


If you have a bucket of water that is not being circulated then only to upper layer (read: a few molecules deep) is actively engaged in taking in or releasing CO2 or O2 from the water. O2 and CO2 exist in an equilibrium with the air. But the molecules of either of these do not mix quickly (diffuse) into the lower levels of the bucket. 
When you take water samples very carefully through the water column you see that at the top the O2 and CO2 levels are at equilibrium with the air, but lower down they are not for a long time. 

Now, do not move the water, but add a plant to the bottom of the bucket with a light over the bucket.
The plant removes CO2 from the water, and adds O2. Since the plant is at the bottom of the bucket, and the water is not circulating it takes a long time for the CO2 near the water surface to diffuse closer to the plant, and it takes a long time for the O2 to diffuse away from the plant and eventually get to the surface where it escapes. 
At night the opposite happens. 

Now lets add some animals. The animals move around ( but lets choose something sedentary) As the O2 and CO2 move through the water (Slowly, remember) the animals do their part by removing O2 and adding CO2. 

But we do not know how these balance. Is there more CO2 in the water, 'cause there are more animals? Then CO2 would eventually leave the water at the surface. 
Is there more O2? Then the O2 would eventually leave the water at the surface. 

Now lets add a little bit of water movement. Perhaps a very small pump or bubbler. Not much. Barely ripple the surface. But the main action raises water from the bottom and flumes it at the surface. The water is now circulating up through the middle of the bucket and down against the sides. 

Whether the water at the bottom is rich in oxygen (plants dominating) or CO2 (animals dominating the reactions) this water is now rising to the surface, in contact with the air and will give off the gas that is in excess and take in more of the one that is lacking. Since the water is circulating, the whole bucket will be closer to being in equilibrium with the air. Since we have got only a very small amount of water circulating then whatever is in excess probably stays in excess, though. 

Now add more and more water motion. Eventually it reaches the point that the CO2 and O2 throughout the bucket are really in equilibrium with the air, because the water is moving so fast there is not any time for either to build up. 

There are some other sources of CO2 in a Walsted style tank. Decomposing organic matter creates a very slight excess of CO2. If the water movement is slow enough that this CO2 stays near the plants, the plants get the benefit. 
That is why the feeling for water circulation in a Walsted style of tank is for less water circulation rather than more.


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

am reading seriously.

when people talk about plants and animals during their night cycle they do the opposite with O2 & CO2 regards, ... that does go against all physiology of the organism. it's like expecting photosynthesis to go backwards during the night, or our own O2 & sugar conversion to go backwards, ... just does not happen, ever, in any species.

animals do use less O2 during their resting periods
plants do use less CO2 during their resting periods

but a plant in the tank when the lights are out will never lower the O2 levels, nor will animals lower the CO2 levels.

--- (piecing together from what you wrote)

so fish movement and/or water movement in the tank will help to balance high & low O2 & CO2 water layers in the tank

water surface movement will speed up the transfer from air to water, or vice versa

water aggitation will take the highly balanced water skin (i dono what it's called) and mix it directly with water at lower depths in the tank

---

hmmm, then with low water turbulance, or at least surface aggitation, to create higher CO2 in the water does make sense with the highly critisized Deep Sand Bed

the theory for sure, harder to focus on this the last few days , but it's definitly my intention to look into it till i can sort out the critisizm from the facts.

i do need those tests though, ammonia, NO3, NO2 to give me a better idea what the beneficial bacteria in the tank is at.

regardless though the anoxic & anaerobic layers scare me still


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Many plants have ways to save oxygen inside their stems or leaves during the day, so do not really remove oxygen from the water at night. But they DO use up oxygen and produce CO2 at night. This is how they build more plant material, using the sun's energy that they have stored during the day. 

Live animals always use oxygen and release CO2. They are using the sun's energy as stored by plants (which the animals eat) to build more animal. 

Net result:
Aquarium water will have less O2 at night, and more CO2. 
Aquarium water can become depleted of CO2 during the day, and very rich in oxygen. 

Night: With more surface movement, more water circulation, some of this CO2 will leave the water, and some oxygen will enter the water. 
Day: The opposite happens. O2 leaves, CO2 enters. 

The exact level of each will vary with so many factors that it is hard to make generalizations about what level of each could be found in the water at any one instant in time. 

Animal mass
Plant mass
Light (PAR)
Water movement at the surface
Surface covering that impedes gas exchange
Emersed plants that add gases to the water
Vertical water circulation
Available nutrients for the plants
Quantity and variety of microorganisms (decomposers, nitrifying, heterotrophic...)
Things being added to the water such as pressurized CO2
... and probably more. 

By the time you get finished thinking about how each item on this list contributes to the water chemistry you will probably go one of two ways:
Go all out with the best test kits you can and try to micro-manage the tank
OR
Forget most of it, just get a few important tests and make sure the tank is stable at whatever level of care you are willing to do.


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## Flear (Sep 29, 2012)

O2 vs. CO2 and plants vs. animals, ... going to need research and studies to sway my mind here, rather goes against biological chemical functions. an organism cannot change it's chemical building functions as these happen on a DNA level. O2 & CO2 are chemicaly different an organism requires a different means of processing each of those chemicals

O2 & CO2 transfer through water surface film is not dependant on light, nore does it vary or change because of the light, it's simply the surface of the water it is not photo-reative.

plant & animal mass is a poor judge of bio-capacity, as the metabolism of each species of each can vary greatly

light plants do indeed need light, the specific wavelength frequencies provide the specific energies needed to allow the plants to preform the chemical reactions that occur with photo-synthesis

as for nutrients and other variables, ... this goes back to metabolisms of species the aquarium contains, ... if things are in balance O2 vs. CO2 (during the day), levels will stay consistent through the day, from morning till night things will remain on par with each other. if one side has a faster metabolism than the other the balance will shift towards the one that has a slower metabolism.

for test kids, ... that's not about micro-managing your tank unless you ignore chemistry & bio-chemistry.

test kits will tell you what is going on, they do not tell you what to do to make adjustments.
chemistry, like math, there's hundreds of ways to arrive at the same result. the test kit will only tell you what the result it, it will not tell you how your tank arrived at that result

if all your wanting to do is make sure the tank is stable, then don't use any test kits, if fish die, it's not stable, if plants discolor it's not stable. even then test kits will tell you what your levels are at in the tank, they will not tell you why they got to those levels, they will not tell you what killed your fish.

like most things, use your mind to tell you what happened, i get accused of thinking too much all the time, ... right back at everyone, i'd say most people don't think enough.

tests will tell me if i'm being overly paranoid, or if my hypothesis is correct. i have to come up with a hypothesis on my own though, then the tests are a YES/NO to tell me if i'm right or not.

tests are good for telling me what is going on, but not how it got that way.
tests are good for telling me what is going on if i'm doing an experiment, i get to learn if i had things in the right balance and proportion. but only if i know ahead of time what i need to look for, again, all it tells me is what is going on.

using any tests and thinking it will cause you to micro-manage your tank, ... those are for people who want to micromanage things anyway, a type of OCD. people typicaly high-strung who do not deal well with the real world that is a constantly changing reality.

such as algae happens, plants grow, fish grow, bacteria grows and multiplies, snails grow and multiply. planktons grow and multiply. in an aquarium there's an easy way to do things and a hard way, ... usualy the difference is if you want your tank to look just a particular certain way, which defeats the whole purpose of "El Natural"

people who make laws that restrict the population
overly controlling parents that allow no freedom to their kids (or their spouse)

none of these things are ever done with love, it's fear of things going wrong, and before they have a chance to see what is going right they are getting their hands in there trying to tweak things just ever so with a obsessive compulsion that they 'have to'. before things show what's going on, these people listen to what they want to hear and will take the tests to mean what they want the tests to mean. the more extreme individuals do the same with real life. there's no talking with them they don't need to ask you what your doing, or going through, they already have the answers and you are expected to follow or your being a problem for all the reasons they insist are going to happen, ... and so fear is born and attack is born.

Donna, do what you want with tests, because they give you no answers, they only say what is so, ... are the levels 0.0, or 0.2, or 1.7 the tests will tell you that. they're excuses for people to do whatever they wish for whatever answers they've convinced themselves must be right.

the plants do not use O2 and energy stored up during the day to grow and produce at night.

if that was the case putting plants in 24 hour light would kill them.
they are not batteries, they use the suns energy as they receive it. and it's not just "energy", it's specific wavelength frequencies that possess specific characteristics the plant uses to assist in the chemical reactions to produce it's own sugars with chlorophyll photo synthesis.

nothing is stored to use later in this regard. things are delt with the moment the plant has access to them. much like our bodies. they absorb nutrients and move those nutrients to where they are needed. we don't absorb amino acids, store those amino acids in little pouches to be used at some other time. they are absorbed and utilized in every area of the body they are needed at that time.

a person can overwork muscles and with proper care treat those injuries the same day to be 100% before the day is up, the more the individual overworks their body the longer it takes to recover, but this is something the body does right away, not hours later in our sleep. studies show that we rest and recover in our sleep, but they do not show us what sleep does for us, because we can rest and recover during the day as well. infact our minds and bodies are often less active watching TV, so the thought that we sleep to rest and recover would only be true if watching TV gave us the same or better recovery.

we can't communicate with plants, we can't communicate with fish, ... we can't even communicate with babies, ... but with observation we can form hypothesis. with that hypothesis we form theories, and with those theories we preform tests to see if our theories are correct.

anyone who uses tests as some means to an end to say well because the test said 7.7 it's telling me i have to do all these other things. someone could add all the PH buffers and softeners/hardeners and do whatever else in the tank, ... or they could have a look and ask a question "why?" because the test gave you a number, it did not give you an answer about what is wrong or right in your tank.

no test ever says 'you have to do X, Y, and A' people say they have to do those things. people will use whatever justifications they can to do whatever they please.

history is full of lessons of people who have done this, dictators, monarchs, scientists, priests.

there's a significant lack of "what happens if you left well enough alone?" people trying to control everything around them, from aquariums to whole countries and some even the world. and people rebel, ... the first thought is never "perhaps i shouldn't have done that", the first thought is "well then i'm going to be even harder on you!"

donna, what each of the things you mentioned does to the tank, ... what about time ?, what does time do to the tank ? what does the human do to the tank ?, what does the tank do to the tank ?

the things you mentioned, ... are all insignificant in the light of what you do to your tank.

every step towards trying to perfect and bring something to a higher and higher level of growth and efficiency adds another device, something else to watch, to maintain, to tinker with. someone trying to get lazy and deciding $30 for an automated feeder is worth it because 5 min. a day is too much of their time.

batteries and power cords, and replacement parts when things break down, and the inevitable, because something broke down the habitat adapted itself for that high-tech addition, and now that it's broken the tank can no longer operate on it's own.

isn't that the exact scenario for every complaint about the under gravel filter ?, if/when it stops, your tank is as good as dead.

more and more people want to tinker more and more with their tanks, ... those who wish to obtain more of a balance are commonly scorned and ridiculed for attempting the "impossible". i've heard of enough "impossibles" and such a thing simply is not real.

there is a real "we do not know how to do that currently"
where "impossible" is synonymous with "ignorant"

Donna, so as for your "you will probably go one of two ways", ... i'm not like you, so i would have never come to those conclusions of 2 ways of doing things after i have the answers already that you spoke of.

those were simple answers, they form a complex picture, and they're easiest answered with "it doesn't really matter, there's what works and what doesn't" the tests you were talking about again don't tell why, they only tell what is going on in that moment.

the micro-management suggestion, ... that's closer to the nerotic OCD that just needs things ever so perfect in their own definition of perfection, that because they need to tinker with things forget about the beauty in nature for just being there.

after hundreds of years of trying to control the world around us, historicaly all we know for certain now is we would have been better off if we let nature be nature instead of trying to direct how it was behaving. by default we are trying to do the same thing in an aquarium. we can play god and find there is always something more to do. or we can let the aquarium be itself and find it's a beautiful thing to behold and that it can take care of itself if we give it a chance.

as for water quality, ... i added a cuttle-bone to the tank, problem solved.

now tell me i'm micromanaging things. or that i need to dissect all of what you mentioned ?

live has taught me one thing very adamently, ... the answer your looking for comes from asking a different question.

available nutrients are not found by looking at available nutrients in the tank. it's found everywhere else, in the fish, in the plants, in the substrate, in the fish waste. if your looking for the available nutrients in the tank and measuring the water, ... your going to kill your tank.

if your looking at CO2 and thinking you need to be looking at the dissolved CO2 in the water column, your going to kill your tank, it's found in your plants, in your fish, in the substrate.

we can't measure the CO2 in those things.
if we are measuring the CO2, it had better be to give us different answers, like the health of everything else in the tank, but not the CO2.

measuring numbers to think those numbers are your answers, ... i hope you never run a business, you'll kill the business searching for numbers that say things are good, and pretending the numbers are not lying to you because you don't know what the numbers are measuring, your only checking that the numbers are there.

happyness is not a number, neither is greed, or family.
relaxation is not a number either. you can't measure someones serotonin and dopamine and say "ahhh, your obviously anxious" and ignore how they're actually feeling. it's a number.

don't ever think any number the tests give you are the answers your thinking, dianna, your going to kill your tank if you believe those numbers are your answer. they will only ever tell you if you were right or wrong about your hypothesis.

i've seen plants thrive in a water PH of 10, with nutrient levels that were totally screwed up. and by all accounts should have killed the plants, ... but where the numbers said it would die, the plant thrived.

there's numbers for you without a hypothesis, without a theory, if your going to trust your numbers, your going to kill your plants, if you know what your searching for, the numbers either tell you if your right or your wrong.

Dianna, ... another area for your numbers. at every given moment in your tanks, in my tank, in every aquarium and ocean in the world, water is constantly freezing and boiling based on the simple reality that heat leaves one molecule (it freezes) and is absorbed by another molecule (it boils), and then it looses it's heat (and freezes) and another molecule gains that heat (and it boils).

what we see in a thermometer does not tell us what is going on in the water.

no i would never trust the numbers for the sake of telling me what is going on, only if i was correct in my theory or not.

i don't think there are many PHd physicists, chemists, biologists in here to answer things, and less that have done the research in any area to find out what is really going on looks completely different from what appears to be going on.

science tells us plenty of things, and from those plenty of things, some of the things we use to test it we ignore their reality, ... that's a strange relationship, "i need you, but you don't exist", that's actual scientific testing procedure.

the placebo effect, everyone knows it's real, but no one wants to admit that your health is based on your mental belief of how your doing, ... isn't that what the placebo effect reveals ?

electricity, we can use it, we know how to generate it's flow, but find one person on the planet that knows exactly what it is, that can explain what is going on. we give it words to allow it to measure up to what we do with it, to give us a basis on what we can use to prove what we are doing with it makes sense.

electrons do not move, nor do they transfer, nor are they physical, yet they can be measured and counted. how do you measure something that isn't physical ? ... yet they do.

Dianna, ... find an answer in your aquarium that points out what you believe, and somewhere else in your tank there will be something that contradicts that. most people will say there's explanations and and exceptions and rules that apply to certain things but not to others and in the end when they've got more exceptions and excuses to justify their beliefs they're insistent that things are they way they are because they're correct about what's going on.

what if your first theory is wrong ?
then every theory you had after that is also wrong, ... and you've based a whole reality around insisting that first theory was right.

some things you've said are correct, insightful and inspiring, ... others are popular knowledge passed from one person to another person that have no greater basis in reality than the position of the sun.

it's 8 min. ahead of what we see, it's not up or down, it's not at a specific place in space, it's moving, and not in the axis that the solar system revolves around the sun.

the sun appears to be were we see it. O2 & CO2 appears to have higher and lower levels in day vs. night. but i don't believe for a moment what you believe about it.

you missed about 4 things that conflict with your beliefs about CO2 and plants & animals, i have probably missed more, but at least i got those 4

you want to look at Light & PAR, how about PUR ?, why do dark purple lights we can't see in provide more light to plants ?

what is it about 380nm through to 780nm have to do with it all ?, lights not real, it's just we've got cells that are receptive to frequencies from 420nm til 700 some and convert them to what we call light, no one seems to recognize what we are most sensitive to (our eyes are not evenly sensitive to these frequencies) we see as green. but again is a range of specific size wavelengths that have unique reactions to the universe around them, and the universe in turn reacts to those frequencies in various ways as well.

metabolisms, that's an odd catch-all, ... how do you even measure it ?, do you measure food eaten ?, amount of waste produced, the relations between the 2, the bacterial breakdown and utilization of the nutrients that the host organism has consumed and the compound waste expelled by the host ?. do you measure it's respiration, its' activity, it's body temperature, it's internal chemical reactions and processes for removing internals wastes generated by chemical reactions in the tissue that are now damaging to the organism. this is not a measure of mass or size.

a reptile, a bird, a fish, a mammal, all have different rates utilizing the nutrients they take in for different results

Dianna, sit back and watch a rainbow, what do you think is going on ?, because there's a huge band we cannot see before we notice the mirror of the rainbow beside it. there's more going on in what we do not see that in the little bit we do see.

your going to have to ask questions about things for me to consider that i haven't already found my answers to.

ask enough questions, if your willing to accept the answers you find out after things got really complex things start to simplify and provide an easy answer that shows you how everything balances out.

but if your not willing to accept the answers because they conflict with something you insist is real, ... everything gets more and more complex ... because your first theory was wrong and you won't accept your world is built on something that isn't real.


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