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Hi everyone! I finally got the PH below 6 long term…it is currently around 4.5 (I did the 40% water change yesterday). I used 1.25 ml of the aforementioned API PH down – easily enough to neutralize all the carbonates that the tank acquired from simple gas exchange. This also sent the conductivity shooting up to about 47 microsiemens/29 ppm TDS in the tank…thankfully the tank will now produce carbonates much more slowly due to its lower PH, so I will not need to add nearly as much acid (and thus conductivity/TDS) next time to keep the PH down.
Long time no post, everyone…I was going to start a new thread, but realized I still had this lying around and I could post my questions here. Anyhow…I am once again considering keeping paroes. Can you assess how my setup would do?
Tank: A standard 20 liter
Light: A 50 cm aquarium light
Water: Reverse osmosis water from the store, 2 gallon/7.5 litre water changes a week (maybe twice a week when trying to spawn them). May add phosphoric acid or API ph down?
Heater: Generic ebay heater
Aeration: Air pump, maybe with a box filter filled with gravel. Also, LOTS of plants
Decor Floating water sprite and water lettuce, likely java fern in the water (not so sure on java moss…too messy in my eyes). LOTS of leaves and maybe branches. Perhaps film canisters for caves.Anything I should change?
Sodium bisulfate is an acidic salt that can be used to reduce the PH of fish tanks…I was using it in my prior setup. I was using live baby brine shrimp…about 1/8th teaspoon every other day for a maximum of eight paroes. PH and conductivity stayed in the 4’s and below 40 respectively, and I was doing 40% water changes every week (this tank had the unusual attribute of having the conductivity drop over the course of the week). For tannins, the substrate was made of peat moss and I put decaffeinated tea bags to seep into the new water before water changes.
Anyhow, I have decided to alter my plan slightly. The tank will have a layer of peat moss on the bottom (I bought the peat moss before I remembered how destructive its harvest is 🙁 may as well use it now that I have it), capped by a layer of sand and with plants and leaves above that. May boost water changes to 3 times a week. Also, may add a second tank to my paro setup…if I spot fry I would be able to move the parents quickly and maximize fry production.
I don’t have an RO unit, but I use a distiller…never more than 4 microsiemens out of the distiller (and usually more like 1 or 2…depends on how clean the water compartment is). I then used a diluted (1/8th teaspoon to 200ml old paro water) sodium bisulfate mixture, about 5ml per gallon/3.78 litres, and that’s enough to keep the water in the mid 4’s ph with only about 17 microsiemens (I add alder cone extract to add some tannins). Sodium bisulfate is probably not as strong as hydrochloric acid but is also much less likely to prompt an ER visit (thus why I didn’t ever try phosphoric acid…no acid burns for me! 🙂 )
Bought them early…they’re arriving tomorrow. I have a 12 litre bin and the 40 litre mentioned above ready for them 🙂
More plants…all of these are in a 40 litre that will soon house P. nagyi. PH is about 5.5 (for some reason) and conductivity is in the high 40’s microsiemens. Conditions are otherwise similar to the prior tank.
Mayaca Fluvitalis – Growing rapidly in paro conditions with no signs of legginess…no surprise from a plant natively from the Rio Negro 🙂
Watersprite – I FINALLY have watersprite growing well in a paro tank, this time by planting the fern on the substrate where I’m not breaking it whenever I do tank maintenance (I put a glass rock on the roots). This is a broader leaved form than than the one I usually try.
Hygrophila corymbosa ‘siamensis’ – Lost a lot of leaves in shipping…it’s slowly growing, but seemingly not as well as the other stem plants I have tried thus far. May remove this one…Congrats 🙂 Going to get P. nagyi myself from msjinkzd at the end of this month (not parvulus, although I think I could handle them) and will be keeping 1 pair in a standard 40 litre and the other in a 12 litre clear storage bin…hoping one or both spawn 🙂
I am intrigued! Keep us updated on this (including on whether the father successfully hatches his clutch and gets them to the free swimming stage)
Well done 🙂 Wish I had a camera capable of catching decent photos of fish of any kind (much less fish like paroes that often dive for cover when you approach)
I will probably be buying two pairs of those endearing little strawberry jewels at the beginning of May 🙂 Just waiting for it to get warmer up here in New England (on the plus side, it gives me more time to get their 40 litre set up, and to set up another 12 litre for spawning purposes)
Not the same conversation, but here is a topic discussing which crypts work for this; http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/cryptocorynes/33818-questions-about-blackwater-crypts.html
Hello again! Here’s two more plants I have tried;
Sunset hygro, hygrophila polysperma – grows feverishly if not shaded. Hasn’t been long enough to tell if it gets leggy, but it doesn’t turn pink and loses most of the white veins under paro conditions.
Golden creeping jenny – Possibly an even faster grower under paro conditions than sunset hygro! No obvious signs of growing abnormalties[quote=”Deepin peat” post=5898]Hello Josh,
first of all you should be aware, that no matter how widely used, dog food or cat food, or any food containing fats of warmblooded animals is really wrong. The reason is simple, these fats are not apropriate for fish. Fish need fats that are liquid within their range of temperature and those that contain the right forms of fat useful for their organism. For this reason, white worms and grindal worms are known to have to much fat and are used only sparingly by experienced aquarists. The “too much fat” thing is not actually the problem, the problem is too much of bad fats as since people started to use them , they were cultivated on food contaning milk fat (oats and milk was the first food used for these). In fact you can prepare high quality food yourself using instant oat flour and skimmed (no fat) dried milk powder in 3:1 (w/w) ratio. Either use it as powder or add a little water to form little drops, so that you are able to remove these and add fresh food on regular basis. You need to the worms to have qulity nutrition, as the substances they contain is what you feed to you fish. I can post some more complex formulas for food cultivation later, but this one is way better for the fish and easy to prepare.[/quote]
Better start looking for oat flour and dried milk powder then…thankx!
Anyhow…what substrate worked well for you? And how did you harvest the worms off the substrate?
