loaches calculator

[chefkeith]

Early this year, shari requested a calculator for this site. I finally started on it and got it working.

Here it is so far-

http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen ... izard.html

I added some of the water change stuff keith wolcott and I have been messing around with. Maybe it will be useful to others, maybe not. I don't know.

I can always add more functions. Let me know what you need.

LOL can have all the code when it's finished.

[loachmom]

Excellent!!!
This is so easy to use. I've often wished for something like this.


Thanks!!!!

[Mad Duff]

Looks great, I will have a proper play around later

[shari2]

Very nice chefkeith! Really easy to use and understand
And rather easy on the eyes too.
How much work would it be to add a function that will convert mg/L or ppm to teaspoons for those who still measure our medications with kitchen utensils?

[Martin Thoene]

Looks good. My only question is how does one come up with an estimate of pollution per day in ppm or mg/l?

The other ppms/mg/ls are obviously obtained by test kits as a figure at that specific time.

Surely this figure has quite an effect on the overall result?

Or am I missing something?

Martin.

[chefkeith]

shari- I think you need the specific gravity to covert to volume

[chefkeith]

Martin- I think it can be estimated by test kits. Measure Nitrates after a water change, then measure it again before the next water change, then divide the difference by the number of days between water changes.

Another way is to estimate by food consumption or food going into the tank. It's a little complicated, but I started a conversion program for that awhile ago. It's based on the protein% of each food. I'll need a more complete list of foods and their protein content. It's not exact science, but it give's a fairly close estimate.

[chefkeith]

There is more gravy to the water change program that I haven't added yet. I just got the basic functions working now.

This program was written in xls format by Keith Wolcott and myself. If anyone wants to see it-

http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen ... zardv2.xls

[shari2]

If I can come up with a table of specific gravities for common medications, would it be doable? Would be tough for combo meds, but could work for straight meds like levamisole (.69724), or Metronidazole (416.13396) etc?

And i was wondering about how to measure the pollution aspect myself. Maybe add some basic directions (such as what you mentioned above) in a comment box above the calculation table?

[chefkeith]

I forget. I'll have to double check to see if it's doable.

I'll add some instructions. Not sure how I'll do it yet. I could add a table with that info somewhere on the page, or I could add a pop-up window, or put some text to an onmouseover event.

[Diana]

Easiest way to enter pollution (Nitrate) accumulation seems to be as suggested above: Measure after a water change, then daily for a while until you get a noticeable difference. Divide by the number of days.

I got an odd result:
I played around with my 125 gallon tank. (I entered 72" x 18" x 24") My tanks are heavily planted, and the Nitrate hovers between 5-15 ppm over the course of a week. I tried to enter 1 ppm rise per day, weekly water change, and got 70 gallon water change. (over 50%)
I tried to enter .1 (point one) ppm per day, and got a 40 gallon weekly water change. (Pretty close to 30%)

Why would an accumulation rate one tenth as fast result in a water change about half as big?

While I actually do something like a 50% change, it is more like every other week, but I have not seen the Nitrates go over 20 ppm, and they are usually lower. I occasionally have to dose NO3 as part of my fertilizer regime, there are times the plants seem to remove all of it.

Another number that might be thoughtful:
Some people stock smaller fish based on the size of the tank. Here is a funny little trick to do this:
Measure the surface area of the tank, length X width. Measure one of these in inches, the other in feet. (It does not matter which is which). Multiply. This is the suggested stocking level of inches worth of fish as long as the fish are under 2".
Obviously, this does not take into account the fish personality, territorial needs and similar issues, this is just a ballpark number for waste load and O2 requirements.

[chefkeith]

Diana- Estimating pollution by Nitrates is not really intended for planted tanks. But still, there must be a mistake somewhere. I'm getting completely different results than what you did (about 12%). Lets' try to figure out why you got the resluts you did. If there's a flaw in the program I need to find it.


6 parameters need to be entered. What was the pollution goal, pollution of source water, and the evaporation rate you entered? Also verify with me that you entered 125 into the volume, choose "weekly" as the water change frequency, and entered .1 in the estimate of daily pollution.

[chefkeith]

I worked more on the water change program. There is still more to do. This program might be too big to fit on one webpage. I hope it's not too complicated to figure out. I might just leave this program on my website if it's just going to cause a mess of confusion.

[Diana]

OK, I re-did it.
Maybe I did something wrong the first time:
Volume: 125 gal
Evap 2 gal/day (I add about 4-5 gallons to the sump a couple of times per week.)
NO3 /day: Either 1 or .1 ppm (Only variable)
Goal: 10 ppm NO3
Water change % came up 47.76% when I used 1 ppm
" " " " " 17.01% " " " .1 ppm

@ 1 ppm per day:
Begin with 0 ppm (tap water)
End of first week = 7 ppm. 50% WC = 3.5 ppm
End of 2nd Week= 10.5 ppm 50% WC = 5.25 ppm
End of 3rd week = 12.25 ppm 50% WC = 6 ppm
End of 4th week = 13 ppm. 50% WC = 6.5 ppm
End of 5th week = 13.5 ppm. 50% WC = 7 ppm
End of 6th week = 14 ppm. 50% WC = 7 ppm
End of 7th week = 14 ppm.....

@ .1 ppm it will take a long time to reach 10 ppm, but dose it with NO3 so the plants are happy:

Begin with 10 ppm
End of first week = 10.7 ppm. 17% water change= 8.9 ppm remaining
End of 2nd week = 9.6 ppm. 17% WC = 8.0 ppm
End of 3rd week = 8.7 ppm. 17% WC = 7.2 ppm
End of 4th week = 7.9 ppm. 17% WC = 6.6 ppm
End of 5th week = 7.3 ppm. 17% WC = 6.1 ppm
End of 6th week = 6.8 ppm. 17% WC = 5.6 ppm
End of 7th week = 6.3 ppm. 17% WC = 5.2 ppm
End of 8th week = 5.9 ppm. 17% WC = 4.9 ppm
End of 3rd week = 5.6 ppm. 17% WC = 4.6 ppm
End of 4th week = 5.3 ppm. 17% WC = 4.4 ppm
End of 5th week = 5.1 ppm. 17% WC = 4.2 ppm
End of 6th week = 4.9 ppm. 17% WC = 4.0 ppm
End of 7th week = 4.7 ppm. 17% WC = 3.9 ppm

It is leveling off, but not at the 10 ppm that I entered as desireable goal for NO3.

Since the NO3 is being measured as a net difference in the aquarium over a period of, say, one week, it does not matter if there are plants in there or not. Fish (via bacteria) produce it, plants (by removing Ammonia) remove it. Net: Gain, if there are more fish than plants, (do a water change) loss if there are more plants than fish (add fertilizer).

[Keith Wolcott]

ChefKeith- It looks good. It is very nice to have this on a web page.

Diana- For 1 ppm and .1 ppm the goal % of 47.76% and 17.01% to maintain 10 ppm is correct I believe. The End of first Week, End of 2nd week, etc data has some problem as you have recognized. It looks like ChefKeith has removed that part of the web page for now and is correcting the problem.