My Fishroom Update

[daspricey]

That looks superb!!!!

[Whitey_MacLeod]

It looks fantastic. The potted plants should do great once they get a few roots down into the water.

[Keith Wolcott]

Very nicely done!!!

[shari2]

chefkeith, you are a wizard.

[Tinman]

What is the PH doing and the KH also ,are they both affected by this introduction? I know you are watching the TDS meter

[chefkeith]

Thanks all. I'm very happy so far. I can't stop staring at this tank.

Current Tap water Parameters-
kH – 72
gH – ? (98 ppm in the Detroit Water Report )
pH - 7.0
TDS - 120
Nitrate – 0

Current Water Parameter Main tanks-
kH – 72
gH – ? (My test kit when bad)
pH - 7.2
TDS- 185
Nitrate - 0

TDS normally has been around – 155 . As soon as I get the drip system hooked back up, I’ll turn up the drip rate up to about 2 gph so that I can get the TDS down to normal levels. Then I'll see what it takes to hold it there. Keep in mind that there is a 120# concrete island in the river tank, which probably still leaches a little bit.

After a week’s+ of no water changes, I'm still not getting any Nitrate reading. The crypt plants are looking better than they ever have, so they probably have something to do with that. I have plenty of potassium nitrate, so I might start using that to get those nitrate levels up. I'll have to figure that into the TDS, which won't be difficult because of the water change calculator that Keith W. and I wrote.

I’ll keep an eye on pH. I still have an electronic Pinpoint pH monitor/controller hooked up to the tanks 24/7, but I don’t use CO2 injection anymore.
The driftwood hasn't dropped the pH much, which is kind of surprising. I'm thinking that the free H- pH ions from the driftwood must be bonding the H+ ions on the concrete island. Those ion's wouldn't be part of the water column, so my water pH hasn't changed much. Just a theory. I wish I new chemistry better.

Right now the photo period is from -
Noon to 4 - 110 watts
4 to 6 - 220 watts
6 to 10 - 110 watts
10 hours of light total.

I hope this isn't too much light for the potted plants. I've been misting them a few times per day so that the leaves won't dry out. I'll get a good reptile mister when I have the money.

[chefkeith]

I just got home to find my main tanks overflowing with water.

This happened because I put a check valve on the airline tubing leading from the overflow to the venturi intake of the powerhead. The darn check valve malfunctioned causing air to build up in the overflow. As soon as I removed the check valve all the air got sucked out of the overflow.

Luckily, I'm a messy person and left a bunch of beach towels on the floor before I left the house. The towels soaked up about 90% of the water, So there wasn't much of a mess at all. Only about 10 gallons of water overflowed onto the floor.

I'll check for further damage in the morning.

[Diana]

I usually have such spills when I am doing water changes. I have come home to leaking tanks, too. Good thing the towels were still there!

[Tinman]

This is why all my tanks are in the basement by a drain except a small counter tank upstairs and none are on carpet or hardwood flooring anymore

[chefkeith]

The tanks overflowed again earlier this morning. Only about a gallon of water reached the floor before I noticed. The spashing sound gave it away.

I can't blame the check valve this time. I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong.

[chefkeith]

I think it was a combination of things. The screw pin on the lever valve was loose (I was playing around with it the other day ) and there was too much slack in the airline tubing (the slack was hanging down off the side of the tank). Hopefully everything is fixed now and this doesn't happen again.

[shari2]

It would have been completely unbelievable if you had managed to create this entire setup with absolutely NO complications!

Now I know it's real.

[chefkeith]

All of the new plants, except for the English Ivy, look like they are dying. I took them out of there pots because I don't think they were getting enough nutrients. So now the roots are directly in the water. Hopefully they can rebound.

Other news,
The overflow I was having problems with definately has an air leak somewhere. The air immediately gets sucked out by the venturi, but still this leak has me worried that the tanks will overflow again. I guess I need to find out where the air leak is coming from. What a PITA that is going to be.

One piece of good news is that I got the drip water change system running again. Atleast, that ain't giving me any trouble yet.

[Keith Wolcott]

Sorry to hear that your plants are struggling.

I have been thinking about your setup and I am wondering how your are hooking the paludarium into the rest of your system. Since you have the paludarium half full, the water level is most likely not the same as the water level in the rest of your tanks. How are you handling this difficulty? Does the overflow for the paludarium siphon down to a sump which then pumps up to one of your other tanks?

[chefkeith]

The overflow from the main tanks siphons water down to the paludarium. There is a pump in the paludarium sending water back up to the main tanks. There is also an overflow in the paludarium that siphons water down to a drain. The drip water changer sends new water to the main tanks. It's a complicated set-up, but it should make things easier.

I think I can fix the leak. I'll seal off joints one at a time with plastic wrap and/or electrical tape to find it. When the air leak stops I'll know which joint to repair. To repair it I'll probably just put some plumbers epoxy putty over the joint. I've fixed air leaks on some old water bridges before with epoxy putty and it worked great.

I'll try this right now.