Yikes where did my carbonate go? (longish)

S

spinjector

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Jan 24, 2005
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Hi guys,

My water is doing wacky things that I have not encountered before, and I am not sure how to deal with it. Something is sucking the carbonate completely dry, and I cannot keep my iron or my phosphorous up to detectable levels.

A couple months ago I had a DIY CO2 yeast disaster, where the 2 liter bottle tipped over and yeast mix got forced into the tank (holy hampsters what a mess!). I had to tear down the tank and bleach everything, including the plants. Now my tank is cycled and looking lovely again, and all the plants that melted from the bleach are popping out new shoots. The bananna plant is especially happy - it has four huge new leaves that are about 5 inches across!

I put in my first Anubias Barteri, which has a monstrous rhizome (like 8" long) and it seems to love me. It's been sending out new roots that grow fuzzy tips that look like Q-tips, and new leaves have been popping out here and there. I also added some Giant Hairgrass, Dwarf Hairgrass, and a small Melon Sword, which are all doing well.

Last weekend I went to Toronto for a couple of days and two things happened. The first thing is that I went to a huge LFS there and got a few bits, including a Hagen phosphate test kit, a Hagen iron test kit, and a Flourish Plant Pack - which has the nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. The second thing is that I came home on Sunday and noticed that the Anubias, the bases of new shoots of Giant Hairgrass, and edges of Crypt leaves had started to fade very slightly to yellow. As I look now on Wednesday, I see that the nice Q-tip roots have melted. :(

I thought this very odd, as I dose 1ml each of Flourish and Flourish Iron every day. The edges of the Crypt leaves are the yellowest (chlorosis?), where their veins are a normal healthy green color.

I went through my water tests and found the following:
Ammonia = 0
Nitrite = 0
Nitrate = 40
GH = 12
KH = 0
PH = 6.5 (due to CO2 and no KH)
PO4 = 0 (despite 5ml of Flourish Phosphorous per day since Sunday)
Iron = 0 (despite 5ml of additional Flourish Iron per day since Sunday)

BTW - this is a 20 gallon tank with a 28 watt Coralife CF fixture.

I dosed two teaspoons of Seachem Alkaline Buffer with my most recent water change, and that brought the alaklinity and PH back to where they should be.

The phosphorous test kit I picked up acts strangely. The test says to wait 2 minutes for the results, but I never get any - not until I put a drop of fertilizer right in the test tube. BUT - I acidentally noticed that I do get results - it just takes like 20 minutes - almost like the phosphorous is being chelated. Is this possible? I recently read about chelate displacement, where another element can displace iron from its chelate, and cause it to precipitate out into the substrate.

So I am not sure what is going on here. The plants are definately going very slowly but perceptibly downhill, but I do not know to do.

One idea that I did have was that I am dosing too much of something, and it's causing one or more of the plant species to grow and suck up the other compounds faster than normal. I know that Anubias is recommended for Cichlid tanks because they won't eat it and it likes the hard water, so I am wondering if that is where the carbonate is going. But all this is just semi-educated guesses.

Thanks.
 
Plants will suck down magnesium and calcium, lowering your KH levels. I add 3 teaspoons of baking soda (SODA, not powder) to a 240G, heavily planted tank each week to keep the KH levels around 7.
 
Well, it looks like you have little to no CO2 in your water, you need to get KH up, try crushed coral or aragonite in your filter. But...

...how much water do you change weekly? You should be changing about 50%. Your NO3 is about twice what it should be (does your tap contain NO3?). More frequent water changes will also help keep your KH at a reasonable level, but if your tap KH is less than 3dKH, or roughly 50ppm, you'll still need to boost it a bit.

Check to see that your PO4 kit is working, try mixing a couple mL's of your Flourish PO4 with some tap water, maybe 50/50 in the test tube, it should go deep blue, if it doesn't, exchange it for a new kit. If it's working, increase your PO4 dosing to bring your PO4 concentration up to at least 1ppm.
 
happychem said:
Well, it looks like you have little to no CO2 in your water, you need to get KH up, try crushed coral or aragonite in your filter. But...

...how much water do you change weekly? You should be changing about 50%. Your NO3 is about twice what it should be (does your tap contain NO3?). More frequent water changes will also help keep your KH at a reasonable level, but if your tap KH is less than 3dKH, or roughly 50ppm, you'll still need to boost it a bit.

Check to see that your PO4 kit is working, try mixing a couple mL's of your Flourish PO4 with some tap water, maybe 50/50 in the test tube, it should go deep blue, if it doesn't, exchange it for a new kit. If it's working, increase your PO4 dosing to bring your PO4 concentration up to at least 1ppm.
Click to expand...
Oh I have plenty of CO2... I get about 4 bubbles per second right now from my DIY into the powerhead. I have a double-bottle 2-liter setup with a T-fitting. I got my KH back up with two teaspoons of Seachem Alkaline Buffer... Now the PH is just about neutral. I usually run my GH and KH kinda hard, both about 12-16. My tapwater has zero nitrate, about 10 GH, 8 KH, and PH about 8. I just did a water change, so the nitrate should be down more now.

I had considered that the PO4 kit was old and burned out, but I wasn't sure. I put a drop of the Flourish Phosphorous in and it did turn deep blue right away.

Happychem,
Can you help me out with some chemical math? I want to create a reference solution with my Flourish Phosphorous. I think the bottle said it was 4% P2O5. How much of that would I put in a given quantity of water to get 1ppm...??? My Moles and Mercks are a bit rusty from highschool. :-)

Thanks.
 
Happy maybe you can help me,what are the benifits to adding baking soda to DIY CO2 set.My tap water's ph is about 6.8 so should I be adding to my DIY next time I make up a mixture.I use 1/2 tsp yeast and 2 cups of sugar.
 
spinjector said:
Happychem,
Can you help me out with some chemical math? I want to create a reference solution with my Flourish Phosphorous. I think the bottle said it was 4% P2O5. How much of that would I put in a given quantity of water to get 1ppm...??? My Moles and Mercks are a bit rusty from highschool. :-)

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Sure. 4% is 4 parts per hundred, 1ppm is 1 part per million. So you want to dilute every 1mL of 4% solution into about 40L of water. But before you get quantitative, try a qualitative test: add about 1mL of Seachem PO4 to your test tube and top to the 5mL line with water, if the kit's working it should turn deep blue.

Maverick, the benefits to adding baking soda is to buffer the water. As yeast convert sugar to CO2, there's a release of H+, acid. In fact, pH crashing is harder on the yeast than rising alcohol levels. If your pH is 6.8, it's a good bet that you need to buffer your water, but it's really more of a KH thing.
 
spinjector said:
KH = 0
PH = 6.5 .
Click to expand...

If these measurements are correct, then you have no CO2 dissolved in the water, unless there is some other base or acid in your tank throwing the C02 calculation off.

spinjector said:
Oh I have plenty of CO2... I get about 4 bubbles per second right now from my DIY into the powerhead. I have a double-bottle 2-liter setup with a T-fitting. .
Click to expand...

This certainly seems like it should be providing CO2. You haven't added pH down or a similar product. This is just a guess but it looks to me like there is some sort of strong acid "eating" your kH and throwing the CO2 calculation out.

The 40 ppm nitrate is high. How often do you do water changes? With 28 watts on a 20 gallon, I wouldn't have expected any great need to do a lot of macro dosing unless you have a very low fish load.

I'm hoping if I ask the right question, one of the experts can help you out.
 
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