PostalPenguin
06-25-2009, 02:51 AM
Came home today to find both my tank's not receiving any CO2 due to the power strip the solenoids were on off! :doh: pH on my tiger tank was 8.1, the plants had used up all the CO2 while the pH on my 29g was only 7.4, up from 7.1. Upon further inspection the Eheim on my 29g had fallen to such low flow it barely rippled the water. And my female GBR was dead. :scry: Upon reading it seems she may have been one of the "hormone" injected fish since she was brilliantly colored even in the stressful store tank. My male GBR seems to be depressed and is now camped out over the powerhead.
The only thing that kept the ammonia from spiking was my AC20 powerhead that was still churning. Upon opening up my eheim I quickly discovered why the flow was so low. The thing was absolutely filled with crud and muck. And this is only after a month since the last cleaning.
So I took this as an opportunity to redo the whole technical side of the tank. I bought an Eheim Ecco 2236 which adds 75 more gph to the tank for a total of >300gph. thumbs2: Transferred over all the ceramic balls into the new filter so hopefully there will be no mini-cycle. It also allowed me to install the inline heater which uncluttered the tank.
I also got a syringe and H2O2 to start spot treating the dang black brush algae that is overrunning the tank. First treatment of 50mL seems to have worked and the livestock enjoyed it. The shrimp and otos were zooming around the tank like mad. Hopefully with more CO2, higher flow and spot treatments I can get rid of it.
What was supposed to be a relaxing afternoon turned into a 6 hour marathon to put the tank back on course. I thought fish were supposed to be relaxing. :hmm3grin2orange:
The only thing that kept the ammonia from spiking was my AC20 powerhead that was still churning. Upon opening up my eheim I quickly discovered why the flow was so low. The thing was absolutely filled with crud and muck. And this is only after a month since the last cleaning.
So I took this as an opportunity to redo the whole technical side of the tank. I bought an Eheim Ecco 2236 which adds 75 more gph to the tank for a total of >300gph. thumbs2: Transferred over all the ceramic balls into the new filter so hopefully there will be no mini-cycle. It also allowed me to install the inline heater which uncluttered the tank.
I also got a syringe and H2O2 to start spot treating the dang black brush algae that is overrunning the tank. First treatment of 50mL seems to have worked and the livestock enjoyed it. The shrimp and otos were zooming around the tank like mad. Hopefully with more CO2, higher flow and spot treatments I can get rid of it.
What was supposed to be a relaxing afternoon turned into a 6 hour marathon to put the tank back on course. I thought fish were supposed to be relaxing. :hmm3grin2orange: