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Phosphate, Malaysian Snails and Newsgroup
Subject: Re: Elevated Phosphates
> I have a 180 gal with a good amount of plants (20-30 echinodorus
> , cabomba, Java fern and few others submersed plants I am trying
> Additionally I have mixed floating plants: duckweed, frogbite an
> medium fish load (is it really medium, at least for fishkeeping
> 6 green discus, 14-16 Pristella tetra, 4-5 Neons, 2 L. curviceps
> Rineloricaria sp. and 2-3 Peckoltia). The substrate is gravel, w
> layer containing some laterite, peat and Delaware Imports tablet
There's at least part of your problem. DAI tablets _definitely_
contain phosphate.
> Here is what I am doing: please let me know if there are better
>
> 1) I have eliminated all peat from the filters and cleaned them
> that this will also reduce the silt deposited on the plants, whi
> was leaching out from the gardening grade peat. The CO2 injected
> adequate to control pH by itself.
>
> 2) I bought several pouches of Phos-Zorb, which I am using one a
> replacing it when phosphate levels stop dropping. I started usin
> week ago. I am now at the second one, and the levels are now aro
> mg/l. No sign yet of clear improvement in plant growth.
Large frequent water changes are cheaper than phospahte removing
resins, but both will work.
> 3) What levels should I realistically try to achieve? Because of
> water phosphate content, I guess that only the use of resin or m
> filtration of the tap water could bring the levels below 0.4 mg/
> levels compatible with adequate algae control? Would the plants
> pick up measurable amounts of phosphates and successfully compet
> algae and cyanobacteria?
My phosphate level is usually unmeasurable, but in the planted
Discus tank I kept, that was difficult to acheive. In that tank,
I found that I was OK as long as I kept the phosphate level below
.5ppm. It depends to a large extent on how much light you have on
the tnak how much phosphate you can get away with.
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Subject: extracting Malaysian trumpets
> So, I want to replace the gravel with a sand/laterite mix, and I
> take the Malaysian trumpet snails that are currently in the tank
> new tank with the other living contents. How can I get them out
> gravel? I have an idea which is to place the gravel in a bucket
> enough Miracle-Gro to bring the nitrates up to about 60ppm, thus
> the snails up where I can get at them. This doesn't sound parti
> elegant, and I was wondering if anyone had any better ideas.
You don't need that many to reseed the new tank. Pick out a dozen
and throw them in. You'll have plenty in no time.
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Subject: List vs. newsgroup (again)
> My policy is going to be to post to both (assuming that the
> administrative chores are still being done for the list). I wil
> probably place more emphasis on the list responses to my questio
> on the quality of information I receive here as opposed to the q
> information I typically see on the newsgroups.
This is one of the things that always bugged me about the
newsgroups, and would keep me from reading both the list and the
newsgroup. I really _hate_ having to read throuhg double
postings.
I know you're not trying to cause trouble, Tom, and I don't know
what the solution is. I just know I hate it. :-(
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Karen Randall
Aquatic Gardeners Assoc.
Boston, MA