Joseph Lorentzen

What effect does the clipping of the grass along side our roadways have on the local plant and animal life? If you know what Dr. Barton Warnock would have said also that would be great.

I have a few idle aquariums. Some have a purpose like the isolation tank and the egg hatching tank.

But 2 twenty gallons currently are idle without any immediate purpose in mind, there are 4 guppies in each just to keep the cycle. The only thing I am certain is that I want them to be single species tanks.

So what small species do you find interesting?

What makes them unique or worthwhile?

Water conditions here are just lacking the salt from being sea water. It is hard and alkaline. It has a lot of copper salts and lithium in it,but yes, I get acid soft water fish to breed here. Call it luck or just call it live foods.

NO community tank suggestions please.

Is there a good site which shows how to read a smith diagram? For something that is suppose to make a complex answer simple, reading it eludes me totally.

Most of us old timers have experimented with deep sand beds in fresh water and most of us have had unhappy results, but Diana Walstad’s method and information as presented in her wonderful book, "Ecology of the Planted Aquarium." seems to indicate that such problems are due to not having the right mixture of organisms to effectively use such an aquarium. Who has tried this method and what were your results? Was the small amount of lessening the task of taking care of the aquarium worth the loss of total tank water volume?

Okay, I tried this once before. I know the cause. I know how to cure it - so please don't diagnosis it.

I change lights on my tank from daylight to an "aquarium and plant" bulb. In just a few days, my tank went from crystal clean to a grayish. With a hand held magnifying glass the grey was not grey at all but green.

The cause according to a local garden center is the phosphates in the water is causing an algae bloom. My ammonia, nitrite, and now non-existence nitrates were so close to 0 as to be undetectable.

So phosphates makes sense as our water is a mix of water from the Rio Grande (irrigation water) and underground water supplies. The phosphates most likely from run offs from the farms. The irrigation water gets positively vivid yellow green during parts of the summer.

I do not wish to kill all the algae off at once. Most of you can figure out what would happen next. So I am tapering off the light by taking away one hour every 3rd day. I am doing 15% water changes every other day. Still by the 3rd day the water looks half way like the water from the irrigation canals around town. I figure I will eventually get the light level down so my fry can control what algae is left.

Okay, the trigger seems to be - phosphates in the water and changing the light bulb. So I have a plan of action and the fish seem to love the algae while I try to control it. All the fry are eating up a storm. (Yeah, free food) Some daphina might help to control it also, but they get eaten also.

Anyway, I am working towards controlling this. So this is also not my question.

What I would like to know if this is a common problem. So please answer my questions below..

Have you had a sudden algae bloom in an old established aquarium? If so, what conditions triggered it?

Don’t jump to the obvious here, because it is not a bacteria bloom. In fact, this is in the category of - has this happened to anyone else?

My 44 gallon hex has been running fine for 2 months after a shortened cycle. I used one of the filters from the 30 gallon to accomplish this feat.

My bulb just quit and so I went down to my LFS for a replacement. Not finding the Life-Glo 5700K and seeing a sale on Marine-Glo, I did a very novice thing and asked the clerk if this bulb will work for my fresh water tank. You know it, “of course, it will.”

Yes, it runs fine in the reflector, but my white tee shirts glow like in a black light.

Now the interesting thing.

The tank is full of 10 guppies where the males are just getting their colors.

On the third day of using the lamp, I woke up to a lot of grey specks throughout the tank and the fish chasing around looking as if they are eating them. At first I thought bacteria bloom, but that made no sense. I had not changed my feeding habits and I have over 50 years of experience in the hobby. I thought infusoria bloom, but that too would require a change in feeding habits.

The specks are small, but even under a large 6 inch magnifying glass, you can see they are slightly green. I think the difference in the color spectrum has caused me to have either a free floating algae bloom or a eugleana bloom.

I am carefully monitoring the water and have not noted any change save the tiny bit of nitrate I had has disappeared.

I will drop in a huge bunch of daphnia tonight. Hopefully, they will feast on this algae or euglena bloom.

Has anyone else had a problem caused merely by changing lights?

Two observations before the question which is related to both observations.

1) Way back to Olson, R. J. in 1981 in his article " Differential photo inhibition of marine nitrifying bacteria, Journal Marine Research" the effect of light on those essential bacteria has been known.

Yet the manufactures of aquarium filters continue to expose their filter media to light by translucent covers. In particular, bio-wheels which should be among the most effective filters seem to be the ones most exposed to light.

The 2nd related concern is that the volume of media does not seem to go up as rapidly as the flow rate on many of the filters. The difference of size of the media a up to 20 gallon power filter and that for say the 20 to 30 gallon filter just does not seem to add at least 30% more area.

What seems to change is the volume of water flowing through the media. I. would not mind paying more initially for media if I knew that it would last a long time and that it would serve the needs of my fish better.

Now to justify the forthcoming question, I am not attempting to find a maintenance free filter nor am I trying to cram all my fish into one tank. I am looking to get the maximum benefit for my pets.

What would be wrong with a filter that would consider those factors by shielding the media and essentially be about the full length of the hood with a pump that would meet the minimum of filtering the water 4 times an hour, but could be paired with a second pump if the fish you are maintaining come from an area of faster flowing streams?

Or do such filters already exist? If they do, could someone post a web site for them.

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