To change or Not to change that is the question...

I think OG and wetmanNY made the good point that under-stocking the tank, and not overfeeding the tank will naturally lead to less nitrates and lower maintenance of a tank.

I can't imagine your tank having the same water conditions if your tank is fully stocked.

If the ultimate goal is a peaceful, relaxing aquarium with very little or no water changes, then a large planted tank with good filtration and with very few fish should do the trick. It sounds like your tank is pretty close to that description.
 
I figure there must be several export routes, since unbalanced end-products are apparently not building up.

You feed some seaweed, Dochere. Is there also a rich growth of algae on the rocks, which your fish keep grazed to a minimum? That would explain one possible route for export of nutrients-- since they aren't building up within the system. Phosphates, and nitrates too (since the ammonia is stripped from the system by the nitrifiers in the RFUGF, the algae depend on nitrate) go into algae, are eaten by fish and rapidly get filtered out of the system.

Are your Tanganyika cichlids eating algae all day long-- pick pick pick over the rock surfaces? Then their waste is quickly passed to the filter by your strong current, and you are meticulous about cleaning the filter... am I getting the picture?

Do you have lots of snails?

Very interesting. Your system has more in common with a well-balanced, self-contained marine aquarium than with a softwater system like mine, where I'm constantly stripping out end products of metabolism, doing water changes, pruning away leaves, rinsing the filters, always flushing the system in various ways, etc.

You didn't pick up on my thought:

The extra carbonates pumped into the water, along with your Tanganyika Buffer Salts are acting as a chemical filter by complexing with PO4, copper etc. and precipitating them. I'll bet there's some carbonate "snow" getting caught up in your filter media and exported.

Do you in fact find a kind of carbonate "floc" in your filter that you're rinsing away?
 
http://malawicichlids.com/mw01011.htm#tangph shows the pH for the lake.. your tank seems almost right on for the surface.

I have a very limited understanding of the elements required for fish life cycles... is there any concern about the replacement(lack there of) of these that would be done normally through water changes.
 
put some bright lighting over your tank and see how long it goes without a fierce algae bloom...

that would tell us how much dissolved nutrients are in your water

If you do have a lot of snails, and other things like that, alot of your waste might be getting consumed. But from experience with SW, only about 20% of these waste products are consumed by these critters, the other 80% end up as nitrates, phosphates, or other waste products.

oh, and BTW, all the products you use that are made by "marc weiss" make 0 difference. Snake-oil. He has never made any claims about what is in any of his products other than "it works wonders"
 
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Originally posted by wetmanNY

Do you have lots of snails?

The extra carbonates pumped into the water, along with your Tanganyika Buffer Salts are acting as a chemical filter by complexing with PO4, copper etc. and precipitating them. I'll bet there's some carbonate "snow" getting caught up in your filter media and exported.

Do you in fact find a kind of carbonate "floc" in your filter that you're rinsing away?
Click to expand...

No, I haven't any snails. i do see a sort of white dandruf on my filter pads, never really put two and two together.
 
Originally posted by slipknottin
put some bright lighting over your tank and see how long it goes without a fierce algae bloom...
products you use that are made by "marc weiss" make 0 difference. Snake-oil.
Click to expand...

You must have missed my last post but up until the last few days my lighting was by two compact fluorescents at 65 watts a piece with 6500k bulbs. They were on 8-10 hours a day. During that time all I have had was a small amount of brown algae growing only on one of the artificial plants I have in the tank.

Since Saturday I threw out the compacts and bought a ballast with a single 40 watt fluorescent. It now has an actinic 420 bulb in it and I have it on less and I already see the brown algae going away.

Also, I am not sure who marc weiss is or what products are his, is there a web site or info on him/his co?
 
Just what water conditions are you trying to create? With that pH, GH, and KH, it certainly isn't Malawi ot Tanganyika.

I'll keep changing water and skip the chemicals - as I age water and normally have only chlorine as an additive which is removed by aging, I can do without the whole spread.
 
Marc Weiss makes that Rift Lake Vital you mentioned earlier. Many people are skeptical of his secret "necessary biological trace elements" and general claims to enhance immune systems. In a closed system it's generally conservative to know the ingredients of anything you add to the system.

I'll bet some PO4 is exiting your system complexed with carbonates in that "white dandruff" that collects in your filter media! The main source of PO4 coming into our aquaria is in the" fishmeal" of flake feeds: ground bones and scales pass right through fish. These organic phosphates (as "apatite") have to be mineralized by bacteria and then taken up by plants or algae andthen usually ingested by small plant-eaters, before fish can assimilate the PO4 group, as part of a big organic molecule.

But most of the phosphate excreted in your system is eliminated before bacteria in the substrate or the filter media have a chance to mineralize it. These factors, plus the rich carbonate load, which quickly scavenges phosphate from the water and binds it in mineral compounds (that dandruff), are keeping your water phosphate clear-- which in turn keeps algae minimal... nice.

You're very tolerant of our nosy, slightly testy curiosity, Dochere-- your system does run counter to most general advice, and it's hard to miss a slight undercurrent of shocked disapproval here...
 
heres my take... much the same as Wetmans.

much the same way kalkwasser works in marine tanks (it could work in FW tanks, but isnt usually done) the high Ph solution precipitates all phosphate out of the water.

phosphate is the limiting agent in algae, and without any phosphate you wont get algae blooms.

Your nitrate levels likely are still pretty high, and other toxins might still be building up in the water.
 
Dochere posted nitrates at 2 ppm, which I've been assuming was a typo-- for 20ppm, Dochere? Still very modest nitrate for any tank that's not densely planted, if it is 20ppm..

BTW, Dochere, do you happen to have quite a lot of porous red lava rock in that set up? mmm ...low nitrates... porous lava rock, hmm... possible bacterial de-nitrification.. mumble mumble...
 
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