How Freshwater Deep Sand Beds Work
- Thread starter DeeDeeK
- Start date
Hmmmm. I can see well enough but I guess all our video cards and monitors can be pretty differently calibrated. Which pictures? I'll try reposting the last two.
I photoshopped the two previously posteds to hopefully help. All one shows is black/grey sand under tan sand and the other shows the two layers of sand with a couple of worms extending from the upper (aerobic) layer into the lower(anaerobic) layer.
UPDATE!
You CAN put too much organic stuff in the sand. I've been leaving root systems, burying smooshed pond snails, and of course there's the couple of fish. I've been getting ammonia seemingly out of nowhere so I decided to pull out all the decaying root systems.
We'll see if the ammonia goes down. I did a water change (gasp!) but had forgotten that San Francisco water has ammonia, almost 1ppm, in it. Now instead of .25ppm, I have .5ppm! Darnit darnit:angryfire:
You CAN put too much organic stuff in the sand. I've been leaving root systems, burying smooshed pond snails, and of course there's the couple of fish. I've been getting ammonia seemingly out of nowhere so I decided to pull out all the decaying root systems.
We'll see if the ammonia goes down. I did a water change (gasp!) but had forgotten that San Francisco water has ammonia, almost 1ppm, in it. Now instead of .25ppm, I have .5ppm! Darnit darnit:angryfire:
I have a question, do you have to feed your fish much, or do they live on mostly the blackworms? My ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates all went to 0, so I guess my aquarium is done cycling. My fish are acting more normal now, and I thought they would get their appetites back, but they still aren't interested in the flake food they used to love. I have noticed a decrease in the blackworm population though, maybe that's what they are living on?
Thank you for this great thread. I learned a lot by reading it.
On your decaying roots, do all of your plants show root decay or are these roots left over from past plants? Do you see any black spots on the roots or are they just brown and mushy?
On your decaying roots, do all of your plants show root decay or are these roots left over from past plants? Do you see any black spots on the roots or are they just brown and mushy?
To address the two posts prior to this one: My fish barely eat flakes some days and as the worm population shrinks (which it always does) they become more interested in flake food again. I just accept that they eat my worms and I buy more every month or two.
My rotting roots are all left-behinds from when I cut and moved a plant. My living plants usually have healthy roots.
My rotting roots are all left-behinds from when I cut and moved a plant. My living plants usually have healthy roots.
Ammonia!!!!!!
My ammonia problem turned out to be very easy to fix. You see, I've been puzzling over these mysterious readings of .25 to .5ppm nh3/4. It would come and go and I blamed rotting roots, overcrowding, overfeeding, any and everything.
I realized that there never were any nitrites and the ammonia never really rose. So I checked the ammonia again, using my 12000K aquarium light. Then I decided to have a second look using daylight from my window. It went from .25ppm to 0ppm as quickly as I changed light sources!
12000K has lots of blue in it and the API test shows yellow when there's 0ppm ammonia. Blue plus yellow equals green! And green means the presence of ammonia. In daylight and in regular house lighting, my test reads 0ppm. Period.
So since then I've actually re-buried some root systems. Still no ammonia.
My ammonia problem turned out to be very easy to fix. You see, I've been puzzling over these mysterious readings of .25 to .5ppm nh3/4. It would come and go and I blamed rotting roots, overcrowding, overfeeding, any and everything.
I realized that there never were any nitrites and the ammonia never really rose. So I checked the ammonia again, using my 12000K aquarium light. Then I decided to have a second look using daylight from my window. It went from .25ppm to 0ppm as quickly as I changed light sources!
12000K has lots of blue in it and the API test shows yellow when there's 0ppm ammonia. Blue plus yellow equals green! And green means the presence of ammonia. In daylight and in regular house lighting, my test reads 0ppm. Period.
So since then I've actually re-buried some root systems. Still no ammonia.
I'm glad my fish are liking the live worms, but they are rainbowfish and platies, and those guys need more vegetable matter. I have seen one of them nibble on some anacharis, I wonder if I added a very small duckweed, maybe they could eat it as they do flake food? I am going to try to find such a duckweed, and see if they like it. If they thrive on a diet of live blackworms and live duckweed, I may never have to feed anything but my bristlenosed pleco!
Everything seems to be going fine with my FWDSB now that the cycle is over with. I am getting lots of gas bubbles from the substrate, but they show no indication of being "toxic and deadly" to anything in the aquarium. I need to rearrange some of the plants that I randomly threw in, and then I'll take pictures once the water clears (clay fog goes away in one day with my awesome Rena Filstar canister filter).
Everything seems to be going fine with my FWDSB now that the cycle is over with. I am getting lots of gas bubbles from the substrate, but they show no indication of being "toxic and deadly" to anything in the aquarium. I need to rearrange some of the plants that I randomly threw in, and then I'll take pictures once the water clears (clay fog goes away in one day with my awesome Rena Filstar canister filter).
OK, here's the promised picture, I'm just going to copy/paste what I wrote in my intro thread:
So, as you can see, I know nothing about aquascaping, but that's not the point for me. All I want is a healthy little waterworld, with happy fish and plants, and at this stage (3 weeks since setup, I think?) it seems like it might work out. You can't see them, but there are
5X black male platies
1X praecox rainbowfish (more as soon as I find some)
8X habrosus dwarf cories
1X albino Ancistrus pleco
Plus a plethora of snails and blackworms. Besides more rainbows, I may consider adding either cherry shrimp, dwarf frogs, or peacock gudgeons. I believe having the substrate full of living blackworms will make it much easier to keep creatures which are generally hard-to-feed in a community setting. If the DSB turns out to be all it's cracked up to be, I may even add all three of those things! Oh, and I must definitely have at least one marimo ball, LOL.
One last note, I've never had good luck with cories, but I couldn't resist these little dwarves in the store. Even after accidentally dropping one of them on the carpet (rats!), these cories have acted healthy and happy from the start. As soon as I put them in the tank, they started snuffling around in the sand, unlike all the cories I've had before, who always hid. I hope that is an indication that I'm actually doing something right.
P.S. notice the "duckweed" I got? I found out what I bought isn't actually real duckweed, it's azolla, or "fairy fern" which is a cool plant in itself, but fish in general don't eat it, so my search for real, edible duckweed continues.
So, as you can see, I know nothing about aquascaping, but that's not the point for me. All I want is a healthy little waterworld, with happy fish and plants, and at this stage (3 weeks since setup, I think?) it seems like it might work out. You can't see them, but there are
5X black male platies
1X praecox rainbowfish (more as soon as I find some)
8X habrosus dwarf cories
1X albino Ancistrus pleco
Plus a plethora of snails and blackworms. Besides more rainbows, I may consider adding either cherry shrimp, dwarf frogs, or peacock gudgeons. I believe having the substrate full of living blackworms will make it much easier to keep creatures which are generally hard-to-feed in a community setting. If the DSB turns out to be all it's cracked up to be, I may even add all three of those things! Oh, and I must definitely have at least one marimo ball, LOL.
One last note, I've never had good luck with cories, but I couldn't resist these little dwarves in the store. Even after accidentally dropping one of them on the carpet (rats!), these cories have acted healthy and happy from the start. As soon as I put them in the tank, they started snuffling around in the sand, unlike all the cories I've had before, who always hid. I hope that is an indication that I'm actually doing something right.
P.S. notice the "duckweed" I got? I found out what I bought isn't actually real duckweed, it's azolla, or "fairy fern" which is a cool plant in itself, but fish in general don't eat it, so my search for real, edible duckweed continues.
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