Author Archives: kypeli - Page 2

Our freshwater aquarium, 19.6.2011

Posted by on June 19, 2011 No comments

Our Juwel RIO 180 tank is now 8 months old and has grown from what only had content from our old 100 liters aquarium such as one stump (or rhizome?) and just a few plants. Now the plants have grown so much and I need to cut them at every water change. I really try to take care of our Amazon sword plants (Echinodorus bleheri) which there are multiple of in our aquarium. As you can see from the picture, I have some Amazon sword plant sprouts growing which is an indication of healthy water. Plants are in general very important to me, so as you can see in the upper left corner of the picture, I also have a CO2 dispenser that makes the plants grow really well.

The aquarium in the pictures below has had water changes every three weeks and to me this is the perfect cycle. All the important metrics (NO2, NO3, pH) are still within good numbers and I can keep the bottom clean as well.

In case you have any questions related to the tank, what I do with it or what I have in it, just leave a comment and I will get back to you. You can also send me an email with your question. You’ll find the email in the About section above.

Juwel automatic feeder with a red flashing light

Posted by on January 8, 2011 21 comments

We had to buy a Juwel automatic feeder for our Juwel RIO tank. The feeder is very simple to setup and use. When I turned the feeder on for the first time, I got a the red LED indicating that the device was on as described in manual. But after some ten seconds the red LED started flashing. I was surprised to find out that there was no mentioning about a red flashing indicator in the instructions manual, so I searched for a while on Google and found this forum and thread.

It turns out that the red flashing indicator on the feeder means that the drum is in the wrong position for it to be able to spin. Let me just say that the drum was in this position when I took it out from the package.

If you have this red blinking indicator on the Juwel feeder, gently spin the drum manually some degrees towards you or so that the text “Juwel aquarium” is pointing towards you. Then you can try by pressing the ‘M’ button to manually spin the drum. And for example test the amount of food it will dispense.

This is absolutely something that Juwel should have included in the instructions, but I hope this blog post will help you with the issue.

Water change obsession

Posted by on November 28, 2010 1 comment

Why do we change the water in our freshwater aquariums? Of course to keep the water clean from waste and ammonia derived toxics (NO2 and NO3). This is where hopefully all of us agree on when it comes to freshwater aquarium keeping. But the discussion starts when we talk about how often do we need to change the water in order to keep the readings low – and particularly with NO3, on what level.

On some forums, especially with visitors from North America, I hear a lot that I am crazy when I don’t change my water every week. I hear that I will get ammonia in my water, my nitrites levels will go sky high and all that. Well, my test kits don’t show me anything like that and I change my water every 4 weeks. Yes, not 1 but every 4 weeks. My test kits show me readings as follows: NO2 = 0, NO3 = 10-20, pH = 7.0. What would be the reasoning to change the water at this point?

I am not going to change the water, and by that affect the ecosystem, if I don’t get high nitrates or some nitrites levels. I don’t know if the water quality is just poor in North America (maybe not Canada, but how about California for example?) and because of that you have to change the water more frequently. But at least here in Finland we have very good tap water so this is not a reason to change the water.

Of course at some point you have to change the water even if the readings show normal numbers, since you want to gravel vacuum your tank. This would be the reason for me to change the water if the water value readings are ok. And for my tank the change frequency seems to be 4 weeks.

At this point it must always be said, that the water change frequency is always tank specific. Nobody can tell you how often you need to change the water in your tank. But please do that based on the water value readings and not based on some comment on some forum “Just because you should”.

Nitrites (NO2) and nitrates (NO3) in a freshwater aquarium

Posted by on November 28, 2010 21 comments

As I am writing this post, I am measuring the nitrates level (NO3) in our freshwater aquarium as I do at least once a week. My level today seems to be somewhere between 10 and 20 ppm. As it has been as long as I can remember.

Now, especially if you are from North America (based on my experience on some forums I visit) you might think “How come he says as long as I can remember?” or “OMG, you must change your water!”. For some reason on some forums, without mentioning any names, changing the water once a week is an obsession for some and having a level of 20 ppm nitrates in your tank is somehow crazy. Well, I disagree.

As you know, nitrites turn into nitrates through the nitrogen cycle. This is good. A well functioning freshwater aquarium has a level of 0 ppm of nitrites in the water. If this goes up, time to change the water and start thinking of the reasons why nitrites levels are up (dead fish in the water, too much feeding, old filter system.. or something else). But nitrates is different. Actually, to have nitrates in the water is good because of the plants. The plants need nitrates (actually they need either ammonia or nitrates, but you don’t want to have ammonia in your water. At all).

In my freshwater aquarium, I have plenty of plants. These plants will use the nitrates in the water for their growth and turn the wasteful nitrates into proteins – and more beautiful plants. It’s really like a good cycle; I get lower levels of nitrates and at the same time greater plants. And this has been going on for as long as I’ve had my Juwel RIO 180 tank. And there is no reason to believe that this would change either, so I am really hoping to have low nitrates levels from now on.

To summarize, I have 0 ppm nitrites and 10-20 ppm of nitrates and with the amount of fish and plants I currently have, this is a stable ecosystem. If either the number of fish goes up, or the number of plants go down this stable ecosystem will change. Only you can know when and if you have a stable ecosystem. With this kind of stable ecosystem you don’t necessarily need to change the water that often.

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