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Is there anything I missed on this? I think @Art and others discussed this years ago.
I think having the option would be great, and I'll still pursue the RO water plan but to have the option to mix with KCl softened tap or replace with KCl softened tap water in the future would be interesting.
Hi, I don't recall the discussions but my personal feeling today is to avoid mixing different water types. It will always be difficult to get it just right and adds a complexity you are better off avoiding. So, today, I recommend RO (and specifically RODI) if you have the option.
While KCL softened water avoids adding sodium to the water, it does add quite a bit of chloride. I'm not sure what, if anything, that would do to plants especially if you have soft-water plants like Tonina. And, if you go that route, I would think you would need to keep a close eye on potassium levels to make sure you are staying within normal ranges.
So as I am reviewing this for my own planning, this is just in line with you pre filter and you use your quick disconnect and swap and you just use a blank end hose to vacuum? or is it like a python gravel tube?
Pretty much! I just went to my local Ace Hardware, got some 5/8" vinyl tubing cut, and stuck a quick disconnect that fits on the end of it. I used this one I believe. All the black plastic disconnects are made in the same factory, so if they look identical but have different branding, they will likely work.
How it works: I pause my filter, close the disconnect valves on the top and bottom of the prefilter. Unscrew the bottom prefilter intake. I then mouth-start a siphon in the "vacuum" tube section to replace the air with water (turning the quick connect valve on it at the last second to prevent splashing). The vacuum tubing is now ~100% filled with tank water. I screw it on to the prefilter intake, turn the filter back on, and go to town vac'ing everything! Dead leaves, pest snails, detritus and mulm, algae, etc.
The water level stays the same, and the water return is just the existing lily pipe. It allows me to siphon/vacuum the entire tank for as long as I want (sometimes an hour!) without changing the water level. Once I'm done I usually perform my 50% WC.
It's not a bad idea to have another quick connect near the vacuum to quickly close the valve should you suck up a fish or shrimp. I don't, and I get a fish every now and then. The prefilter is gentle and allows the fish to totally survive.
Once the tank has been vacuumed, I pause the filter, close the connect valves, then remove the entire prefilter (it's not heavy). I open it in the kitchen sink, squeeze and rinse the sponge aggressively with hot tap water, then rinse again and return it all to the tank.
I also connect the tank's intake lily pipe first and open the lower valves with the upper connect left unattached. This lets me fill the prefilter with tank water and expel the air out the top. Soon as the water reaches the top, I turn the valve to stop the flow of water, attach the top tubing back to the prefilter, open all the valves, and start the filter/pump again.
This is really great and I'm hoping to emulate this. Currently I feel like my flow is fine-ish, with my oase 850 hooked up to the large reactor but it seems a little slow, so I had the thought to have a second filter that is just one of those netlea pre filters, to a oase pump and then return to the tank and have two sets of lily pipes (I think this is what you have had in the past, right?)
Yeah I had two filter intakes and two returns, PLUS the RO-water-adding return, for a total of 5 lily pipes. I've currently changed to only one intake, one return, and one water add (which has worked well with my 1,420gph Oase inline pump as the only filtration).
I do have dreams of upgrading my intake and return to the ARC SS Fluval FX series lily pipes for improved flow, and make my prefilter the rare 22mm Netlea prefilter (if I can find it in the USA!). The 22mm prefilter takes 18/24mm hosing, larger than the standard 16/22mm hosing we use.
I use a separate 16/22mm hose with a same-brand quick-connect on the end as the "vacuum" hose, and attach that in place of where the regular lily pipe intake goes. I then turn my filter on, and voila, I have a "water vacuum"! I've been wanting to post about this for a while
Things got busy studying for my boards, and I was pretty frustrated with algae problems and not finishing my grand plans for auto water changes so I have only done one serious 40% water change with the vacuuming through the filter (which worked very well like you said @Naturescapes_Rocco using the netlea prefilter + pump set up I have with a quick disconnect to turn intake into a vaccum).
Since then the 6 weeks included 2 weeks of incessant testing of all parameters after a couple of my oldest minnows died, and everything was coming back within good parameters. That was in august but since then my TDS has been around 160-175 and I felt ready to bring in new fish. I bought 8 more White cloud minnows, 7 yellow threaded rainbowfish, 3 nerite snails, 6 kuhli loaches and 5 true amano shrimp (they’re so much smaller then my false amanos).
One rainbow and 2 amanos were doa, so not great but it was during the heat wave a few weeks ago.
Everyone else has gotten along fine. And they’re doing well.
From a plant standpoint my carpet hasn’t gotten where I’d like it to, and I know I’ll need to rescape at some point, but I was trying to reach an equilibrium with the tank and was fighting so much string algae and green spot algae, plus I had noticed some minimal BBA on the Java fern that I’d successfully fought off after the big vacuuming, but the green algae hadn’t gone away. Things were growing very well and I’ve had wayyy too many runners from many of my plants that I’ll have to deal with. I’ve done minimal trimming of plants but I’m getting rid of half a gallon of frogbit and salvinia every couple weeks, eventually I’d like to get rid of it. I don’t love the long roots of the frogbit with the scape.
Beyond all that with all the planting and additions before the September batch of fish I ended up with pest snails despite my best efforts, and they were more than happy to deal with some of the early brown algae and plant debris as things were trying to acclimate to the tank. This wasn’t helped by my kids wanting to help with feeding, usually it isn’t too crazy amount of food they just want to do it daily.
Of course, the snail population was through the roof, and that didn’t get better in September with the new fish. I originally wanted other loaches but didn’t want my RCS population to be decimated.
Anyhow, with feeding the new fish for the first weeks the algae wasn’t improving yet, BUT THEN, I was studying for my board exams on a vacation week, allowing me to be in my office more often, and I also decreased my photoperiod to 8 hours from 9 hours. Beyond that when I went back to work last week, I forgot to feed the fish and so did the kids for 5 days. I only dropped some sinking food for the kuhlis at about 11pm every couple days.
THEN SATURDAY MORNING I LOOKED AT THE TANK AND THERE WAS ZERO ALGAE ON THE CARPET! Way less overall on the walls and elsewhere as well. Other plants were looking generally happy.
Lots of variables changes but I think less light and less feeding have made a difference.
The only other changes were the following:
1. Last Tuesday when I took my test I turned off the light timer and backlight timer (remote test taken in my office) and I forgot to turn the backlight back on this whole week. (I’m wondering if that could be adding to the algae, maybe I’ll shorten its time to when I’m home in the evenings)
2. I changed my intakes to both filters to 3D printed ones with much smaller wholes to protect shrimp/snails/everyone. The oase pump+netlea prefilter can DO SERIOUS GPM. I had snails and a few adult RCS get stuck on the SS filter intake, and one of the old OG minnows when it died was on the intake, but I’m not sure it died there. Anyhow, since the swap 7 days ago I’ve also noticed way more baby shrimp in the tank. I think my filter was self culling.
I was brave and took a picture getting home from work today, no editing.
I forgot to mention I removed more hardscape/just driftwood about 3 weeks ago before the new fish came from the ‘path’ (lol) in the middle, but decided to plant crypts there instead.
I think it’s hectic but it could be worse, and overall it’s feeling better with less algae.
Great Journal! No Idea how this slide under my radar until now. You will not be disappointed with the P series lights. I have 2 on my 180 and could not be happier with them.
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