# Carbon depletion after about one year



## JoanToBa (Aug 23, 2018)

Hello, long time no see!

It's been a relatively long time since I last read Diana's book, but I still had this one question:

How could I replenish carbon levels in the aquarium?

I know that as an alternative, I could use plants that can use the (some kind of carbon from the water's minerals or something) like crypts or others but I'd like to be able to keep the prettier plants I have in mind.

Thanks!


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

You can freeze cubes of dirt in stick it in the substrate to replenish nutrient & carbon levels.


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

This is a very good question.

I've also noted that around 1 year things change in my NPTs. I use my yard dirt, maybe different soil would give different longevity for some more sensitive plants.

I did the frozen dirt thing, but quite a hassle. I also sometimes pots in with plants and fresh dirt.... These both work for me but quite a hassle and also pots ruin the 'scape a bit.

To be honest I am not sure if its the carbon levels or some other missing nutrient, but adding fresh soil always cured the problem for me for a while. Maybe I don't feed / have enough fish or I over clean the tank.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

Try dark soil with lots of organics in it like potting soil.


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## JoanToBa (Aug 23, 2018)

mistergreen said:


> Try dark soil with lots of organics in it like potting soil.


Yeah, but wouldn't carbon still get depleted after a long time?


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

JoanToBa said:


> Yeah, but wouldn't carbon still get depleted after a long time?


Eventually in any closed system. Fish food high in nitrogen (meat) and carbon (vegetable) usually are the fertilizers that we add into the system.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

As I've posted elsewhere here, one of my NPT's has been set up for more than 8 years and the plants are still doing well, with no external inputs except fish foods (and with no outputs of anything except an infrequent water replacement.) 

Carbon is usually the limiting nutrient in NPT's. That doesn't mean  that the plants die; they just grow more slowly.

Fish food is the main source of nutrients in established NPT's. Perhaps consider adding more fish and/or supplying more food?

Lotsa luck!

Bill


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

aquabillpers said:


> .
> 
> Fish food is the main source of nutrients in established NPT's. Perhaps consider adding more fish and/or supplying more food?
> 
> Bill


Yes, adding more fish or fishfood always helps. However, one must not only provide the CO2 but see that it is not lost from the tank. That means going easy on tank cleaning, water changes, aeration, etc.

I'm glad to hear that you have had an NPT going for 8 years. Congratulations!


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

Thanks, Diane. 

As you certainly know, CO2 is not the only source of carbon in aquariums. The natural processes in an established NPT also liberate it from other compounds.

And, as you said, those natural processes shouldn't be disrupted by excessive cleaning, aeration, and similar actions. 

In the 8 years that my NPT has existed, many fish have lived out their allotted times in it. I have rarely seen a corpse, let alone removed one.

Bill


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## JoanToBa (Aug 23, 2018)

aquabillpers said:


> Thanks, Diane.
> 
> As you certainly know, CO2 is not the only source of carbon in aquariums. The natural processes in an established NPT also liberate it from other compounds.
> 
> ...


Woah, now that's rad!


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## Gerald (Mar 24, 2008)

Dead fish have been used as plant fertilizer since the dawn of human agriculture.


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

Gerald said:


> Dead fish have been used as plant fertilizer since the dawn of human agriculture.


Little bit off-topic. But of course you want to remove the dead fish if you have a chance to find it.... I am also happy with the longevity of fish in my tanks.

In the book, there is a reference aquarium where the weight of fish food input is calculated. What I noticed, I feed much less (half..) in my tank which is 2x larger than the reference aquarium. I also have quite some rainbow fish, I think more fish in my tank would just overcrowd it. So me feeding less than the reference also may explain why I see that some more sensitive plants are not doing that good after 1 year or so. But regardless, it really does not mean that all plants die out and the tank becomes a desert. And I am really not so sure 100% if its carbon. It can be that some hardy plants become much larger (say a crypt can have quite many leaves) or maybe some other nutrients (K?) are gone in the water column.

If you guys have the book, can you make a comparison how much you feed compared to that reference?


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

I have to do weekly water changes and algae maintenance in my dirt tank. If I don't the BBA will take over and fish health goes down. I do supplement ferts and carbon chemicals because of this.


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

mistergreen said:


> I have to do weekly water changes and algae maintenance in my dirt tank. If I don't the BBA will take over and fish health goes down. I do supplement ferts and carbon chemicals because of this.


Then there may be other issues with your setup,.. Normally these are not required for an NPT.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

zolteeC said:


> Then there may be other issues with your setup,.. Normally these are not required for an NPT.


"Too much light" will lead to BBA, especially if not enough CO2 or not a consistent level of CO2 is available to the plants. I don't know why that happens, but it does.


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## JoanToBa (Aug 23, 2018)

hoppycalif said:


> zolteeC said:
> 
> 
> > Then there may be other issues with your setup,.. Normally these are not required for an NPT.
> ...


Yeah, I also thought something is wrong in his setup. I think it's a combination between too much light and a lack of plant growth. Adding fast growing plants like duckweed, hornwort, or others would solve that.


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

hoppycalif said:


> "Too much light" will lead to BBA, especially if not enough CO2 or not a consistent level of CO2 is available to the plants. I don't know why that happens, but it does.


The issue is, when it comes to algae, generalization on the cause is very difficult.

I also have some outdoor NPT tanks, which receive direct sunlight in some cases, and I have never ever seen BBA in them.

The tank gets so much sunlight, that some plants what are normally not red, turn red, like this one:










or these ones:










(The Val in the corner and the Bacopa)

Now I do not know if the plants are red because of too much sun or some other side effect of the sun (Fe "poisoning"). Maybe it has to do with temperature fluctuation because its outdoors. _But one thing is sure, there is plenty of light, no CO2 dosage (its NPT, not even a filter), and no any sign of BBA here._


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

zolteeC said:


> Then there may be other issues with your setup,.. Normally these are not required for an NPT.


It's working for me so I'm not going to mess with it.
BBA grows mostly on hardscape. You can't argue that water changes are bad for fish health.


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

mistergreen said:


> It's working for me so I'm not going to mess with it.
> BBA grows mostly on hardscape. You can't argue that water changes are bad for fish health.


Sure, if it works, don't fix it .


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

Rad? LOL. I vote conservative!


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

By the way, there is a genius method for CO2 dosing in this video:






Hands up if anyone has such a high quality fish store nearby . I do not.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

yup, the bell method had been around for a long time.


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## aquabillpers (Apr 13, 2006)

"It's working for me so I'm not going to mess with it.
BBA grows mostly on hardscape. You can't argue that water changes are bad for fish health."

I don't think anybody would argue that.

But also, as Diane and others have said, in NPt's excessive water changes remove nutrients that plants need. In high tech tanks, where nutrients are added, the fish are (almost) irrelevant, but they are a vital component of the ecosystem.

Bill


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## tiger15 (Apr 9, 2017)

hoppycalif said:


> "Too much light" will lead to BBA, especially if not enough CO2 or not a consistent level of CO2 is available to the plants. I don't know why that happens, but it does.


I don't think so.

I have a fish only tank that gets low light but no lack of BBA. I have to spot treat with peroxide on all exposed surfaces to control BBA during WC. I also began dosing 5x Excel after WC to supress BBA in submerged surfaces that I can't spot treat with peroxide. Apparently, BBA doesn't need much light to thrive.

I have two NPT shrimp bowls hanging by the window that receive several hours direct sunlight in the afternoon. The light intensity is very high, in the 300 PAR levels measured by my LUX meter. There is not a trace of BBA in both bowls, including BBA infested plants I transferred to the bowl. So high light and low CO2 do not promote BBA.

I do get green thread algae in one bowl, but none in another which I can't figure out why. The difference between the two is the thread algae bowl has dwarf sag and shrimp, and the algae free bowl has hair grass and no shrimp (which died out from failing to reproduce). I don't mind and welcome the green thread algae which is attractive and makes good shrimp habitat.

I notice the hair grass is yellowing out in the shrimpless bowl, suggesting that carbon is running out. It's definitely carbon limiting as the floating frogbit is lush, green and thriving. I am looking for idea to replenish the carbon.


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## pburstrom (Jan 4, 2019)

I agree with tiger 15. I converted my shrimp tank to house my wife's goldfish. The shrimp setup was "high tech" with intense lighting and CO2 injection. Pulled the CO2, pulled the carpet, most of the plants which required several water changes as it was a dirted tank. Wife's goldfish fish have been there about a year, two months ago I literally cut the lighting in half. Was running two 50 watt daylight led chips. One died so I pulled but did not replace. BBA outbreak began shortly after. Got so bad I pulled the tank scrubbed and did a massive water change. This went from 100w daylight to 50. CO2 and all the plants needing it had been gone for about a year. The lighting was the only change bringing about the BBA. The only other tank I have ever had noticeable BBA was another low tech low lighting tank years ago. I have been keeping aquariums for four decades. Fairly long run for so little issues.


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## zolteeC (Dec 26, 2017)

Thinking about this CO2 thing, I decided to put quite some peat in the biological filter in my few years old NPT. I've read that some old school guys were doing this especially with biotope tanks. There the idea is to make the water a little bit tinted and a bit more acidic. This is not quite my goal, I am rather hoping that peat decomposition will release CO2 as oxygenated water flows through it in the filter. So far the plants are definitely showing a positive reaction to the peat addition. Now I don't know if its because of nutrients being released from the peat, or the CO2 availability became better.

_Any thoughts on this?_ 
_Can this be a relatively reasonable procedure with some old NPTs which do not have enough fish food input or just over filtered?
_
I am fairly sure, that my older NPT tanks do not need any biological filtration to get rid of NH4 and NO2, in fact probably these tanks are already somewhat N (or/and CO2) limited.

In the past, in some occasions I added fresh soil in the tank (which usually helped to get plants growing again), but that's quite a messy process (freezing soil, or pots, etc..).. Dumping some peat in the filter is somewhat easier for me.


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## mistergreen (Mar 3, 2007)

It's possible the extra organics give aerobic bacteria something to consume and produce CO2. Lowering the pH also helps the plants absorb micronutrients.

You can also add more organics in the substrate.


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## dwalstad (Apr 14, 2006)

zolteeC said:


> Thinking about this CO2 thing, I decided to put quite some peat in the biological filter in my few years old NPT. I've read that some old school guys were doing this especially with biotope tanks. There the idea is to make the water a little bit tinted and a bit more acidic. This is not quite my goal, I am rather hoping that peat decomposition will release CO2 as oxygenated water flows through it in the filter. So far the plants are definitely showing a positive reaction to the peat addition. Now I don't know if its because of nutrients being released from the peat, or the CO2 availability became better.
> 
> _Any thoughts on this?_


I think adding peat to filter isn't a bad idea. Am glad you're seeing positive results. Peat is acidic and decomposed enough that its further decomposition and CO2 release isn't that fast. So it's not going to start a bacterial bloom.

Congratulations on having a good idea and going ahead with it. (Wish we had more of this!)


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