Hi Algae growers :)
I recently found that dosing liquid fertilizers in the aquarium soil using a syringe is far more effective than adding in the water column (as per manufacturers' recommendation) for my tanks. Doing this, plants grew lusher and faster, algae buildup was also significantly less.
Is this common knowledge? have people tried this type of experiment before? if so please share your exp
Background and how I stumbled on this-
My 1.5-year-old, 35 gallons heavily planted tank (high tech with 15 neon, 7 otto, and 50+ shrimps) was showing stagnated plant growth despite loading it with co2, Seachem Flourish, Iron, and Trace as per the recommended dosage.
2 months back, I thought my aqua-soil was giving up. Since I could not find root tabs in the market, I just injected a mixture of Flourish (20ml), Iron(5ml) and Trace (5ml) deep in aqua-soil at random spots instead of adding it directly in the water column.
Since I loaded far more fertilizer than usual, I was afraid that algae might take over everything. But to my surprise, plants started growing like a newly planted tank and whatever algae I had before this disappeared. My epified plants (anubias petite and gold) were also doing well.
I am injecting 5ml of this mixture in the soil every week in my 35g. Since last month I also started doing the same for a 5-gallon low-tech betta tank. both tanks had outstanding results.
Unfortunately, since I was really not expecting much out of this, I didn't take before and after photos. But since the actual results are outstanding, I am thinking of doing a properly controlled experiment next. Please kindly share your findings/pointers If you have already done this type of experiment before.
Thanks,
bit thumbs-up for typos
**** I was thinking of just adding ADA Iron for my red plants and waiting to add others. What are your guys timeline when it comes to liquid fertz?
I started my tank on December 20, 2020.
Substrate:
- ADA Power Sand L Basic 2x
- 3 scoops each (Bacter, Clear Super, Tourmaline BC)
- ADA Amazonia Gold Ver.
- ADA Amazonia Powder
With Co2! (currently at 3 bubbles)
Lightning:
- 2 weeks on Hygger (8 hours) then switched to SCAPE (6 hours) with 100 Par rating.
Flora: (mix of submerged and emersed)
- Pogostemus Erectus
- Pogostemus Stellaus
- ludwigia Ovalis
- Rotala Orange Juice
- Pogostemus Stellata
- Ludiwgia Arcuata
- Rotala Type 3
- Rotala Wallichi
- Limophila Aromatica
- Rotala Magenta
- Rotala HRA
- Rotala Macranda Mini Type 4
- Bacopa Purple
- AR Mini
- Cuphea Anagaildea
- Stayrogyne Repens
- Bacopa Caroliniana
- Ammania Bonsai
I have recently discovered that I need to prep a source of distilled water. Specifically, a family member has a CPAP machine which goes through approximately 1 gallon of distilled water every 3 weeks in its humidifier, and having a reliable source of distilled water is essential for good quality sleep. Good sleep, of course, is essential to handling any disaster at our best. My existing preps are adequate to provide the machine with electricity indefinitely, and we keep spare parts for it, but I would like to set up an easy way to distill water instead of relying on a finite supply of store-bought.
Now, I could redneck-engineering something together out of assorted kitchenware and stress about stuff in my house contaminating the water after it's distilled, but I can also afford to just go purchase a suitable tool for the job. I started reading up on electric-powered countertop water distillers, and then I realized that that's pretty silly: If I just got a moonshine still, I could probably distill water with it and also have the right tools on hand for distilling alcohol (useful for cleaning as well as just drinking) if required.
So now I'm down the rabbit hole reading up on different still types, and I learned that column stills exist, which allegedly require less energy and produce a higher quality finished spirit (without the start and end bits that try to kill you, like pot stills have). It seems like both still types should work ok for distilling small quantities of water occasionally, but I figured I'd ask here in case anyone else has experiences or opinions on the topic.
Also, my well has very hard water, so I'm thinking it'd probably be better to run filtered rainwater through the still instead of tap water, to minimize the need to scrub scale out of it later.
So, hivemind: What do you know about the relative merits of different still types when it comes to producing distilled water when the device isn't being used for spirits?
I got some clay gravel and put plants in before realizing that you need either some type of soil or root tabs. I don't really want to deal with putting dirt in the bottom now that I have the tank filled and all, and idk how I'd feel about having to dig around and do root tabs. Are there any plants that can survive in my gravel? Moss seems like it should work, possibly anubias? Any others?
I've seen the videos & tutorials on making floating water source blocks, like this single block and ilmango's floating water channel. However, I'd like to make a column of source blocks. Anyone have a suggestion for that?
Hey guys, flowing water column elevators are a thing I use all the time in my bases but have also seen a lot of youtubers struggle with, and think it's very unintuitive.
If you're in water and sprint forward, you will go into swim mode. However if you are right up against a wall without room to move forward you won't go into swim mode, so you just need to back up a bit from the wall (but can do this within a 1x1 column of water). Once you're in swim mode you can move much faster up and down the water column. You'll need to swim against a wall and can't do this in a free-standing column of water or you'll just shoot out the edge.
The water can be flowing and doesn't need to be source blocks, you'll still swim super fast in both directions up and down it.
IMO swim mode should just be replaced with faster water speed movement in general and I've posted it over in minecraft suggestions, since these mechanics are very confusing and hard to grasp, and when even people who play Minecraft regularly still aren't getting it I think it says a lot about how swim mode is kind of poorly designed and non-intuitive.
