I'm a bad boy

beaslbob · Apr 24, 2012

Again.

or still. :wink:

unknown sources said:
Bob,

I have warned you a few times now and even banned you for 7 days for mention of dechlors as something not needed in a fish tank.

For the 10th time, if it is something you want to do in your tank, by all means do what you want to do. In no way are you allowed to refer to them as not needed, whether direct or indirect, in anyone's thread or any of your own. This would also mean referring to them as "chemicals" and then turning around and saying chemicals aren't needed. It also applies to quoting any part of an MSDS where it may say harmful to aqautic animals or whatever it may say along those lines.

I edited one of your posts from yesterday where you mentioned a product like Prime is not needed.

This the LAST warning and next time will be permanent ban and every thread and post of yours is removed from the site in one swift movement.

Can you imagine? I had the nerve to actually quote an msds.

guess I'll never learn. :bigsmile:

.

beaslbob · Apr 24, 2012

FWIW in the thread mentioned the OP had been measuring extremely high ammonia in a planted FW tank like totally over pegging the api test kit. Yet fish hadlived in the tank for 6 weeks that appeared to be doing fine. I suggested he try the seachem multitest kit and that I suspected the ammonia was locked. I asked if he was using any chemicals and then he posted he was in fact using prime. So I suggested he stop using prime add some fast growing plants like anacharis and wisteria and even linked to and quoted the prime web page and the seachem multi test page. Even posted a picture of my api ammonia test kit from my one and only crash a few years back.

Yerboy · Apr 24, 2012

I have to admit that quote is pretty funny and makes me picture the type of discussion that take place behind closed doors in Washington with many of our elected officials.

What i don't understand is how any forum owner/moderator "and it must be many because rumor has it you stay in trouble a lot" feels the need to censor your ideas on what works and what is harmful or snake oil without having some stake in the product or practice being criticized.

beaslbob · Apr 24, 2012

perhaps we just need health care for fish. LOL

Tomoko Schum · Apr 24, 2012

I don't know why you insist on not using dechlorinator, Bob. I find it easier to dechlorinate the water in my planted aquarium with prime and not worry about the effect of excess ammonia that may not be taken up by plants.

Plants do use ammonia and prefer it over nitrate up to a certain point because they can get more electrons from ammonia than from nitrate during photosynthesis. Reducing nitrate is more costly to them because they have to produce nitrate reductase. However, plants reduce ammonia up to a certain point and then switch to nitrate. Plants do not keep on using ammonia indefinitely.

As a matter of fact, ammonia in water can be toxic at elevated concentrations to plants, too. The few studies that have been carried out on the toxicity of ammonia to freshwater vegetation have shown that concentrations greater than 2.4 milligrams of total ammonia (i.e., ammonia plus ammonium) per litre inhibit photosynthesis and growth in algae (e.g., World Health Organization 1986). In experiments with rooted aquatic plants, ammonia reduced the length and weight of roots and shoots (Stanley 1974; Litav and Lehrer 1978).

So tread with caution there.

beaslbob · Apr 25, 2012

Oh no not Tomoko also. :cry:

Actually, I don't insist on not using dechlorinators. And everything you say is absolutely true.

What I do recommend (notice the difference :wink

is you start a tank planted and let it set a week. then add 1 fish (10g tank) and not add food for a week. Then add more fish and start light feeding. all the while topping off with untreated tap water from a commonly used cold faucet that has been ran for 1/2 - 1 minute or so.

In the specific thread mentioned the poster had been using prime and had fish that had survived weeks with 8+++++++(api test kit) ammonia. So Prime had locked up the ammonia and was still being used. And his use or Prime did not come out in the thread until I posted. He had been told from LFS prime will take care of everything with no mention of adverse side effects. As the prime continues he could get to the point where the prime itself would crash his tank.

what you have is one chemical "fighting" another both of which are dangerous to our fish. Both of which must breakdown or all our streams and the ocean would not be able to support fish after all these years.

The posts seem to indicate the chloramine never never breaks down and the dechlors have absolutely no side effects. Yet noone ever posts what the half life and under what conditions of either is. Yet the MSDS does have warings about dumping the dechlors in streams as concentrations above 30ppm with suffocate aquatic life.

So my basic point is the dechlors are at best unnecesary and at worse can crash the tank.

Now if you're going to set up a tank and a day or less later stock up it, then use the dechlor.

I just feel it is better to wait a week.

my .02

beaslbob · Apr 25, 2012

OMG that was long.

Short: because dechlor can crash a tank. :wink:

pickupman66 · Apr 25, 2012

referencing freshwater or saltwater as well? incidentally, I use RO/Di in the reef so dont need any prime there but I have been using it in the water we use for water changes in the boy's little freshwater tank. I think it was you who told me it was not good to do Ro/Di in that tank.

Very interesting and thought provoking discussion. It is this that makes communities very strong.

IE, I got the same sharp stick advising that water changes were unnecessary in a reef tank. Go figure...

beaslbob · Apr 25, 2012

pickupman66 said:
referencing freshwater or saltwater as well? incidentally, I use RO/Di in the reef so dont need any prime there but I have been using it in the water we use for water changes in the boy's little freshwater tank. I think it was you who told me it was not good to do Ro/Di in that tank.

Very interesting and thought provoking discussion. It is this that makes communities very strong.

IE, I got the same sharp stick advising that water changes were unnecessary in a reef tank. Go figure...

In FW or salt. Fw plants or marine macros IMHO filter the water just fine.

and in either to me the key is balancing out the tank so increases and decreases are a low as possible. Water changes will limit changes but not prevent. For instance if you do a 1% water change (linear) parameters will be 100 times the changes between water changes plus whatever is in the replacement water. Which is way marine tanks dose calcium/alk/magnesium even with water changes. Meanwhile ammonia/nitrItes/nitrates/phosphates can all be unmeasureable with any water change schedule even no water changes.

my .02

Tomoko Schum · Apr 25, 2012

Fw plants or marine macros IMHO filter the water just fine.

I agree with this statement with a qualifier. This is where balancing is important. If you have too high a bio load, plants or macroalgae cannot keep up with it. I have seen many planted tanks fail/get infested with algae/have sick fish with too high a bio load.

You know 30ppm of Prime is a heck of a lot of amount if you are talking about "the stream". It's practically unobtainable even with hundreds of standard bottles of Prime. You can certainly overdose Prime in your aquarium but it's still safe when you dose 5 or 6 times the recommended amount. It would take a massive overdose to have any effect on the oxygen levels in the tank according to Seachem. Regarding "one chemical "fighting" another both of which are dangerous to our fish", mixing chemicals blindly is a bad idea, but I would not be worried about chemical reacting with another chemical in the case of Prime and aquarium water.

Many municipalities are switching chlorine with chloramine. Huntsville is contemplating it, too. So when you recommend starting a tank with plants, I would take the presence of chloramine into consideration. The half life of chloramine is 300 hours at the pH of 7.5 and 40 hours at the pH of 6.5. I would be unconfortable with recommending not to use Prime or Amquel to a newbie when establishing a new tank even with plants. Letting a tank sit for a week sounds okay, but some people get impatient and tend to cut it short. Even when starting a planted tank, I would use Prime or Amquel and a lot of aquatic plants right from the beginning. This can eliminate the error of underestimating an ammonia level. If I am using an inert substrate, I'd go ahead and add fish with plants, provided that plants are in good shape and actively growing.

Just for your information, I am using ADA's Aqua Soil Amazonia and Power Sand combination in my new 75 rimless tank. These substrate materials produce a lot of ammonia initially. I had to wait for a week and a half to let ammonia level drop to a safe enough level to add fish even with a massive amount of actively growing aquatic plants (transplanted right from my previous 75 gallon tank), high light, and CO2 injection. After the ammonia level dropped, fluffy brown diatom bloomed and persisted for a few weeks instead of the normal a few days to one week duration. I added GAC into my canister filter with Amano's recommendation and the bloom went away in two days.

beaslbob · Apr 26, 2012

Tomoko Schum said:
...

Many municipalities are switching chlorine with chloramine. Huntsville is contemplating it, too.

FWIW harvest monrovia water authority is using chloramine at least that what they stated 3-4 years ago.

So when you recommend starting a tank with plants, I would take the presence of chloramine into consideration. The half life of chloramine is 300 hours at the pH of 7.5 and 40 hours at the pH of 6.5.

...

.

Can you give me a reference for this and hopefully for 1/2 life of the ammonia locks/dechlors like sodium thiosulfide (spelling) and the like?

300 hours is like what 3 weeks or so. But 40 hours is only a day or two and one test tank did have a pH of 6.5 for a day then up to 7.2 before the final rise to over 8.

I have also heard it breaks down faster under light as well.

The posters at the other site(s) never never mention 1/2 life. Just the chloramine lasts and lasts and must be treated.

all I know is I wait a week (10g) add a fish and don't feed for a week. Fish show now sings of stress whatsoever. But then It did die when I fed it that first week. the one time I did test I did get very very small nitrite spikes after adding the fish and the week later when I started feeding 1 flake per day. Those spikes dropped down after a day.

beaslbob · Apr 26, 2012

I'm starting 2 threads to 1) force myself to clean up the garage, 2) start some of my tanks, and 3) demonstrate the methods.

already things are happening. one poster said:

poster in demonstration tank thread said:
I dont want to come off any kind of way, however, you are seriously saying you would pull this thread because he plans on running setups the way "he" chooses and if it does not comply with what "you" insist on as "normal" practices you will shut it down? That is quite concerning. Now we need approval to follow our tank builds? Im just a little shocked that we are moving in this direction here. I mean it would be great if the mass amount of people on this forum would chime in with their opinions on this, I did not think we curbed ones ability to share their experiences with others???? I have read a lot of posts from BeaslBob since I joined this forum 3 years ago and have tried his methods a few times, but he always stresses to people that he is just giving his opinion, so how do we get to the point of, our way or no way???? Again I am not trying to be difficult but since day one on here it was always stressed that there is not one way to do things and opinions and experiences shared are what will keep this forum as good as it was, not shutting down threads because yo do not like that individuals methods. I just am a little shocked.

So I guess it's not just me. :xd:

Tomoko Schum · Apr 26, 2012

Can you give me a reference for this?

It's out of "Fundamentals and control of nitrification in chloraminated drinking water system" by American Worter Works Assoc. But why is a t-1/2 important in the context of aquaria? A biological/elimination half-life is important if you are dealing with residence time within an organisms, but it seems not so meaningful for an aquarium discussion. We are not dealing with an isotope after all (that would be Reilly's territory if you want to know the nitty gritty of it.)

300 hours is like what 3 weeks or so.

Hey, how did you get that, Bob?

Yerboy · Apr 26, 2012

beaslbob said:
I'm starting 2 threads to 1) force myself to clean up the garage, 2) start some of my tanks, and 3) demonstrate the methods.

already things are happening. one poster said:

So I guess it's not just me. :xd:

i felt the same way when i read a few of the threads you had talked about.

beaslbob · Apr 27, 2012

Tomoko Schum said:
It's out of "Fundamentals and control of nitrification in chloraminated drinking water system" by American Worter Works Assoc. But why is a t-1/2 important in the context of aquaria? A biological/elimination half-life is important if you are dealing with residence time within an organisms, but it seems not so meaningful for an aquarium discussion. We are not dealing with an isotope after all (that would be Reilly's territory if you want to know the nitty gritty of it.)

thanks will check that out

Hey, how did you get that, Bob?

By mistake 10 days is 240 hours, 20 days 480 hours so is now gestimate it is a little less than 3 weeks. Hey engineering is not accounting. LOL

my .02

beaslbob · Apr 27, 2012

On my FW demonstration tank thread this was posted.

post FW demo tank thread said:
Quote:

[TD="class: alt2"]Originally Posted by beaslbob first of all this will give me some incentive to

1) clean up the garage

2) restart my old tanks.

If anyone wants to make it more scientific they are welcome to start their own system with their own methods conducting the same test I am.

I do not accept that these methods

1) have no circulation

2) have no filtration

3) stress the fish in anyway

4) are maintenance free.

5) chloramine never dissipates.

FWIW my local water supply does use chloramines.

Still just my .02
[/TD]

RED FLAG....Anyone reading this stuff be aware....THIS IS HOW YOU CRASH A TANK!!! Now, lets all watch him do it!

__________________