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Re: gravel, carbon, crustaceans and impellers
John Lemons asked:
> P.S. Why in the world does gravel cost so darn much from a lfs?
Because some people are willing to pay it.
> ------------------------------
Shawn Kesler wrote:
>
> The first round of study involving activated carbon and trace element fertilizer
> in FW tanks is done.
>
Very cool! Thanks a lot. This probably will squelch a lot of (my)
speculation.
Q: Do you recall what Plantex CSM is chelated with?
Comment 1: If I were to change your test conditions any, I'd
probably ask for more "aquarium-like" conditions, but I have no reason to
believe that there are non-linearities involved that would seriously
effect your results,
Comment 2: Good luck trying to identify the organic coloring agents.
There may be some published information in European technical/
environmental literature. I guess my main questions about it would be
"What is the mean molecular weight?" and "How does it effect alkalinity?"
> ------------------------------
Jim asked:
> Anybody has experience to share about having friendly crustaceans in a
> community planted tank?
Friendly? The shrimp I've kept are friendly in about the same way that
cockroaches are friendly. I haven't tried other crustaceans.
I'm having some success keeping ghost shrimp. They breed in the tank and
I think I'm now in a third generation following an original purchase in
December, last year. Success keeping them alive and molting in my water
seems to require that I add iodide to the water.
> ------------------------------
Chistopher Coleman asked:
> Do others have an opinion about impeller motors in a planted
> tank? What do the Eheim and Fluval use for circulation?
To the best of my knowledge, all of the water pumps sold in the hobby for
filtering and circulation use impellers - in fact I've only seen a couple
pumps that didn't use the same basic impeller design. "Dosing pumps" are
peristaltic pumps and don't use an impeller, but for higher flow rates
there aren't many alternatives.
Other non-impeller designs include propeller pumps (good for circulation,
but not used in the hobby), gear pumps (like many automobile oil pumps),
screw pumps (used for moving thick suspensions sometimes against high
pressure), piston pumps (not used in the hobby- I think the seals would
wear out too quickly), bladder pumps (low discharge, high pressure, too
much hardware), bellows pumps (I guess these are Walter Adey's favorite
plankton-friendly alternative) and variations on these.
Some of these designs might make fun DIY projects.
Roger Miller