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Pet Forum / Aquaria / Cichlids / April 2005Phosphate/Copper Levels
Hello all. Just getting back into this hobby after a 15 year vacation. I'm setting up a 55 gallon tank with a lot of live plants and a few dawrf amazon chiclids. (Not sure which ones yet, perhaps Apistogramma cacatuoides and some cardinals. ) My copper level from the tap is about 0.25 ppm and my phosphate level is near 1 ppm. Are these two high? Ph fm the tap is 6.2 and KH is 71.6ppm . I have a RO unit, and I was thinking of using half RO water and half tap. Is this a good plan? Perhaps I'm worring too much, but I want to do this right so as not to 1) kill fish and 2) have alge. Any thoughts/advise to a (re)beginner (!) appreciated. Thanks! > Hello all. Just getting back into this hobby after a 15 year vacation. > I'm setting up a 55 gallon tank with a lot of live plants and a few dawrf [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > I came back after only 5 years and quite a bit had changed. I'm having fun with the new lighting options and fabulous plants available by mail order over the internet. Half RO will take you down to about 0.5 ppm phosphate. That's fine for low algae as long as you have adequate nitrate. According to Tom Barr, the NPK ratio to shoot for is 8-1-16 so you need 4 ppm nitrate. That's optimal for plants, which will outcompete the algae. You may have to add KNO3 to get there if you have a lot of plant growth. As for the copper, you may want to do something about that. It will make it difficult to keep snails and shrimp, and build up in the tank substrate. Good carbon will remove copper from water. You probably don't want to carbon filter a planted tank, so maybe prefiltering the tap water overnight with a box filter full of carbon would work?  Signature__ Elaine T __ ><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__>< rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com Thanks for the input, yes this 'internet thing' is really amazing...I love seeing all the great plants on it and the pictures of the tanks. Cany you give me a link to the Tom Barr method? I 'googled' it but can't find the orginal thread. I really want to have some nice plants in the tank. Thanks again! >> Hello all. Just getting back into this hobby after a 15 year vacation. >> I'm setting up a 55 gallon tank with a lot of live plants and a few [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > want to carbon filter a planted tank, so maybe prefiltering the tap water > overnight with a box filter full of carbon would work? > Thanks for the input, yes this 'internet thing' is really amazing...I love > seeing all the great plants on it and the pictures of the tanks. > > Cany you give me a link to the Tom Barr method? I 'googled' it but can't > find the orginal thread. I really want to have some nice plants in the > tank. Thanks again! His homepage is http://www.barrreport.com/. You can register for some free info, and pay for a newsletter. You can get the fertilizers for this method at www.gregwatson.com. Richard Sexton also posted one of Thomas Barr's latest plant tank "recipe" posts at http://aquaria.net/articles/plants/barr-dose/ Signature__ Elaine T __ ><__'> http://eethomp.com/fish.html <'__>< rec.aquaria.* FAQ http://faq.thekrib.com |
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