Aquasoil (there are various brands and types) is “an active bottom layer that lowers the pH value and slightly affects the water chemistry“. One aspect is to slowly leach out fertiliser into the water column over time. How about that ‘lowers the pH’ piece? One way would be to have the aquasoil directly add acid […]
Read more →Category: Water additives
Practical use of additives (fertilisers, buffers, conditioners, algaecides) to maintain water quality.
Despite all the advice to the contrary, I tried out some Caridina shrimp in the tapwater-based Shrimphaus. This did not go well and after 3 weeks there was only one brave survivor left. The usual way to keep soft water shrimp is to start with reverse-osmosis (RO) water which is selectively remineralised mostly to restore […]
Read more →Cambridgeshire has hard, alkaline tap water. A number of iron salts such as iron phosphates and hydroxides are essentially insoluble. This can potentially cause issues with lack of iron availability for plants in an aquarium. In both the Fireplace Aquarium and the Shrimphaus, modified estimative index fertilising provides plenty of phosphates, and the alkaline tap […]
Read more →After three weeks of treating the Shrimphaus with Tetra AlguMin in an attempt at chemical control of black beard algae, I can confidently report that monolinuron, the active ingredient in AlguMin, has absolutely no effect whatsoever on black beard algae (BBA, black brush algae). The algae is as healthy and bushy as ever, does not […]
Read more →Black beard algae (BBA, brush algae) used to be a bit of a nuisance in the Fireplace Aquarium, but since switching to a high phosphate, estimative index dosing regimen, BBA and really all forms of algae have been pretty much a non-issue. Tanks need to sort their own equilibrium, and what works for the high-tech CO2-injected […]
Read more →The newly planted vallis seemed to be doing poorly with the leaves suffering structural damage and since vallis is thought to be sensitive to damage from liquid carbon I stopped the daily dosing of EasyCarbo. Stopping the daily liquid carbon is something I had been thinking about doing anyway, on the grounds that with injected […]
Read more →Tap water is convenient and inexpensive but you probably don’t want the chlorine added to an aquarium and if you’re adding a lot of new water such as the 50% water change in an estimative index fertiliser scheme this becomes particularly important. Accordingly it is pretty standard to use a water conditioner to neutralise nasties […]
Read more →Use of liquid carbon in an aquarium “Liquid CO2” or “liquid carbon” is a liquid (naturally) that is advertised to provide a usable and growth-impactful source of carbon to submerged plants. Although it’s hard to get definitive component analysis, liquid carbon is inevitably either glutaraldehyde, or a derivative form of glutaraldehyde e.g. a cyclised stabilised […]
Read more →“Estimative Index” aquarium plant fertiliser method and strategy The ‘estimative index’ (EI) is a fertilizer concept originated by Tom Barr where the general idea is to never have plant nutrients be limiting in the water column. Plants will grow and generally outcompete algae (so the theory goes). In practice, while I’m sure the outcompeting part […]
Read more →I’m giving EasyCarbo a try Mostly I think of “liquid carbon” as off-label algaecide. Since I’m struggling with green spot algae that made me wonder whether it was time to fresh up the liquid carbon approach and try something new…
Read more →