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Originally Posted by ceg4048
Hi,
No, not really. Taking the biomedia out of the filter is not really a good idea. Biomedia is optimized by the constant flow of the filter delivering water all over the bacteria colony. The colonies are therefore delivered ammonia, nitrite and oxygen at a steady pace and at high enough volumes to maximize their population densities. Putting the media in the tank reduces this flow through rate, crippling the population and thus the effectiveness of the colony in the media.
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What I was told on another post when asking about the best way to cycle a planted tank, was that when using zeolite, the majority of the good bacteria will populate the surface of the zeolite where the ammonia is trapped. Since there was little ammonia in the water due to the zeolite, I figured that more bacteria would form on the zeolite itself than the biomedia. That's why when I was faced with the choice of removing either the biomedia or the old zeolite, I removed the biomedia to preserve the hopefully larger colony on the zeolite.
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What you should have been doing is to do a 2X or 3X 50%-80% per week water change during the first 4-6 weeks of the tank being set up. This would directly remove a good percentage of any toxin buildup.
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Yes this would have worked but the reason I went with the zeolite instead was because I wanted to avoid any possible ammonia buildup to avoid algae outbreaks, since I've had so much trouble with these in the past. Nothing else was buildling up other than a small amount of nitrites, until my zeolite ran out. The tank has only been up for three weeks by the way.
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The fertilization addition has nothing to do with the poor health, that's for sure. You seem to have completely ignored the possibility of a parasitic attack. Newly setup tanks need time to stabilize. They need time for all the various bacteria buildup and chemical reactions to take place and to find an equilibrium. This may take a few months.
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I agree, parasites are a good possibility. The ammonia in the water likely weakened the immune systems of the fish making them sucsceptible to parasites. I was wondering why all of a sudden this would start, though, with no apparent ammonia readings, but the next day I got my answer.
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I don't mean to be harsh, but the money you spent on zeolite and test kits could easily have been spent on more plants, and as discussed, a few more water changes per week would have the same effect of reducing ammonia/nitrite buildup and you would never need to measure anything.
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As I already mentioned, I ordered a large amount of plants through my lfs and that was all they brought in, and it cost me over $50. I looked into ordering plants online and with shipping costs, it worked out to be no cheaper. I figured at least this way, I would be able to look at them before I bought them. Planted tanks are not common here. Zeolite cost me about $3 and I already had the test kits.
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It's not clear what other activity or experiments you are attempting with this tank but with all due respect, my advice would be to settle down, keep things simple and do more regular water changes. I would recommend to stop fiddling; get more plants by hook or by crook, settle on a dosing scheme, settle on a water change/maintenance schedule, settle on lighting and then chill out and enjoy watching your tank.http://www.barrreport.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
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When I get some more money I may order in some more plants. In the meantime I have to make do. Other than the co2 thing I've been trying out, I don't think I've been fiddling at all, I stuck with my plan to use zeolite and have kept up with 50% water changes weekly, dosing with ei for the most part but like I said it was only last week that I got on a good schedule of dosing.
If I do that I'll have to remove the zeolite. If I remove the new stuff, I will be back to ammonia readings leading to a possible algae outbreak and my plants cost me too much to risk. Plus I don't know if I have the time and energy to be hauling 20 gallons of water back and forth to my sink every couple of days. If I remove the old zeolite, I will be removing whatever bacterial colony I already have going for me. I'm not trying to argue or question what you're saying, but I'll need some logical reasoning first as to why this will benefit me more than what I'm already doing. By now, whatever is on the biomedia is probably partly dead anyway.