The coolest thing is that my mom has gotten into plants for her tank! So she asked me for some assistance and we worked on the tank all day Saturday.
I brought over my test kit, scissors, tweezers, and digital camera:
Water Parameters before:
pH-7.0
1.5 dKH
22 dGH
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 160 mg/L
Phosphate - 5.0 mg/L
0.7 wpg
She admitted to not having done a water change in a long time (because it's a pain in the a$$) and I explained the importance of doing it for the fish and the plants. To make it easier, we put together a python for simple water changes.
We tested the tap water to see what it was like:
pH - 7.0
6 dKH
12 dGH
Nitrate - 10 mg/L
Phosphate - 1.0 mg/L
Sheesh!
I wish my tap water was this good....
Here's the before pic:
First things first, we added 2 bags of Onyx sand to the original gravel. We debated weather to remove the original gravel or not, but did not want to go through all the crap I just went through with my 55 gallon.
Next, we pulled the filter out and made a DIY filter media setup that includes course foam, lava rock, and filter floss. I explaind that we do not use carbon all the time now.
We replaced the standard plastic hood with a glass cover. We gutted the flourescent strip and added 4 spiral compact flourescents to bring the intensity up to 1.8 WPG. I feel that the color of these spiral cf bulbs are too yellow (~3000K) and we should probably get ones that are higher on the Kelvin scale.
There are a few plants in there now from her original purchase. I explaind that she needed to add lots of stem plants. So she ordered a bunch that will be here on Wednesday.
Here's the after shot:
It was so cool spending the day with her and working on the tank! I hope that she can get all the enjoyment out of live plants that I have...
I brought over my test kit, scissors, tweezers, and digital camera:
Water Parameters before:
pH-7.0
1.5 dKH
22 dGH
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 160 mg/L
Phosphate - 5.0 mg/L
0.7 wpg
She admitted to not having done a water change in a long time (because it's a pain in the a$$) and I explained the importance of doing it for the fish and the plants. To make it easier, we put together a python for simple water changes.
We tested the tap water to see what it was like:
pH - 7.0
6 dKH
12 dGH
Nitrate - 10 mg/L
Phosphate - 1.0 mg/L
Sheesh!
I wish my tap water was this good....Here's the before pic:
First things first, we added 2 bags of Onyx sand to the original gravel. We debated weather to remove the original gravel or not, but did not want to go through all the crap I just went through with my 55 gallon.
Next, we pulled the filter out and made a DIY filter media setup that includes course foam, lava rock, and filter floss. I explaind that we do not use carbon all the time now.
We replaced the standard plastic hood with a glass cover. We gutted the flourescent strip and added 4 spiral compact flourescents to bring the intensity up to 1.8 WPG. I feel that the color of these spiral cf bulbs are too yellow (~3000K) and we should probably get ones that are higher on the Kelvin scale.
There are a few plants in there now from her original purchase. I explaind that she needed to add lots of stem plants. So she ordered a bunch that will be here on Wednesday.
Here's the after shot:
It was so cool spending the day with her and working on the tank! I hope that she can get all the enjoyment out of live plants that I have...
Thanks for sharing!!