How to Quarantine Aquatic Plants

So you finally bought home a nice aquatic plants... so do you put them directly into your tank?

My advice is DO NOT PLANT directly!! the reasons are fairly simple

• LFS/Farm tanks/ponds are filthy may have pests like snail or even parasites
• The plant you bought may being laced with pesticide , which is poisonous to shrimps and invertebrates 

So how do you actually clean them? there are several ways

1) Repeated rinse with tap water, soak in tap water for several hours; for me, i soak for 1-2 days .I will put it back into the plastic bag ( after cleaning) put in some water and let it float in the tank ( with light, it won't die so easily). During the soaking, you can monitor whether is there any hitchhiker floating/crawling around the bag.

2) Soak with anti snail/ diluted salt solution. The soaking is not 100% effective as i still can see some hitchhikers now and then. Note: must rinse the plant and soak it with tap water at least 2-3 times before introducing plants.

3) Soak with diluted bleach( warning, try this at your own risk) some people diluted bleach (1:10) and soak the plants in it for 1 minute. Then, rinse with anti chlorine treated water until there is no more chlorine smell. FYI: I did try this for algae infested plants and this does not work well with some plants as the plants withers away after few days. It works with some hardy plants like ferns...but i do not recommend it if you do not know what you are doing, just to share how it works.

4) It is best if you have a quarantine tank with lights, some fish and few cheapo shrimps to spare. This is to check whether there is any residue pesticide after your "proper" cleaning

The reason i wrote this because my friend (bluebubbles) and i accidentally bought some pesticide laced plants and caused few casualty despite we soak and quarantine it for several hours. 

After this incident, i always clean, soak, quarantine, try out with cheapo shrimp before introducing the plant into my shrimp tank... hope you guys learn from our experience...:)

FAQs

Q: My cheap plants are like 1 dollar per bunch, so tedious to quarantine and clean them?
A: There are no right or wrong answer, some people just plant them and no problem at all but better play safe if you have sensitive critters

Q: My plants are cultures plants 10+ bucks, do i need to clean them?
A: My answer is yes, you still need to clean off the gels on their root. I find them rich in nutrient and causes some fungus growth

Q:my plants are expensive, i worry i might kill it
A: i do agree there is a chance for you to mess up and kill the plants. well at least flush it with de-chlorinated water and quarantine them if you have doubts

Q; my plants are emerge plants from farm, do i need to quarantine them?
A: yes, emerge plants may have pesticide too

Q;do you have expensive plants? how you manage to buy them
A; i buy from hobbyist, LFS, farms....you want to know how i buy them? pay money or exchange with my existing plants lah... hahaha

Q; I got no money, can you give me some plants?
A; i admit this hobby is not rewarding, i can't give you money or plant but i can show you how to earn some passive income, check out the below links.

Patric Chan's website
George Brandon's website

its better for me to teach you how to fish rather than pass you the fish directly.

IAPLC Rank #1379...lucky i am not last....:)

The result for IAPLC is OUT!!!!
http://en.iaplc.com/results12/results12.html

i am ranked 1379..... not too shabby..at least not last...wahahaha

So now my headache is next rescape.....hmmm what should i do next... any suggestions??

Co2 Drop Checker

I bought a 2nd hand CO2 Drop Checker from a AQ bro..hehe lets see my new toy

co2 regent

4dkh water suppose to be used rather than tank water..4dkh water will produce more accurate result

I bought co2 indicator liquid from GC 1 week before, still have not use it yet...haha too kiasu

hehe completed the set up... the liquid is blue initially, but after around 30-40 mins, it turns green, showing sufficient co2 in water. I heard its best to achieve yellow colour(more than sufficient co2), but i ''Sayang" my fish and shrimps... balance is more important to me.

The Death of Molly Fish

Death is unpreventable, thus lets accept it with an open mind, 

day 1, shrimps are gathering around the corpse scratching vigorously

Day 2

Day 3

day 4, the corpse is almost vanished and recycled. Nothing is wasted by mother nature... i am glad i am able to recreate a small ecosystem in my tank...

Silent hunters the assassin snails, these bee like snails are assassins and will eat anything meaty. Their favourite food is snail, dead corpse, and of course fish food. Its good to have a couple of these in the tank to control pest snails.It does not harm shrimps, i can even see my shrimps grazing on assassin snail's shell once in a while...

Hardy Shrimps...to share

I am quite busy with my job, so i did not update the blog that often...hehe below is to share some hardy and nice shrimps which i keep in both my low tech and mid tech tank with following parameters

PH 6-7

GH: 6-8

Temperature: 27-29 (fan cooled)

Yamato Shrimps

 red colour and berried

blue colour cleaning itself

empty shell of yamato... my yamato shrimps is similar size as my neon tetras

Fire Red aka high grade sakura shrimps...or cherry pickings....lol

feasting Hikari algae tabs

feasting cooked long bean...hehe

Malayan Shrimps

these guys are very shy and they change colours now and then, they always hide when i tried to take a picture of them

dark brown malayan shrimp

Notes: all the pictures are taken from my tank, not from the internet.Thus, please have the courtesy to inform me if you wish to reproduce them in any way...:) 

NOTE: I focus more on aquascaping instead of shrimping, a lot of people especially newbies wanted best of both world. To be frank, it is almost impossible, we fertilize the aquarium a lot and thus the parameter will/may not be suitable for expensive and fragile shrimps. You may get away with hardy shrimps like malayan/cherry/ yamato but try other shrimps at your own risk, my advice:- select one you prefer most of have 2 tanks:- 1 aquarium for aquascape and 1 aquarium for shrimps....hehehe or even more tanks ...LOL

Rescape of RED EARTH to Mysterious Trail Part 2/2

Tah dah!!... Mysterious Trail almost completed, No more bacterial bloom and i added some polysperma rosa as background plant to suck up the excess nutrients... hehe..  hope you guys enjoyed my journal in making this aquascape... the big stone is there to sink the bogwood so the tank is not actually perfect but at least its limited edition...haha

Tank
2 feet x 1.5 feet x 1.5 feet Classica bow front tank set

Equipment

Original OHF

Eden 501 filter

2 x 24 watts T5HO

Substrate

Gex Green Pack 

Lapis Sand

1 pack of clay sand/pallets

1 pack of ceramic rings

Base fert

Power sand

Flora

Amazon Swords 

Staurogyne

Weeping Moss

Java Moss

Narrow Java Fern

Crypto Wenditti Tropical

Anubias Nana- normal and Mini
Brazilian Microswords
Polysperma Rosa

Fauna

10-20 Fire red shrimps

5 Yamato Shrimps

10-15 Neon Tetras

2 Molly

2 oto

1 Assassin snail

Decoration

2 Bog wood

Some stones

The making of the Mysterious Trail can be found in below link

http://theplantedtankblog.blogspot.sg/2012/05/rescape-of-red-earth-to-mysterious.html

Thanks to

Aquatic Quotient members

VSGenesis aka Maz the mr masalah

Felix_fx2 aka Felix the cat

Neondagger aka Mr MIA

Erctheanda aka Eric

Yany aka Yany 

Bluebubbles aka Uncle Davidson

Pjnec aka Unker John

Special Thanks to 

MY WIFE...... 

Rescape of RED EARTH to Mysterious Trail Part 1/2

The status of my main tank..RED EARTH... pathetic hor~~ die die need to rescape... haha all moss overgrown and some browning off due to the current hot weather..

First, special thanks to VSGenesis of AQ for contributing these used GEX soil, although the online review for this soil is not very good, but i am running low on budget and I am setting up low tech tank anyway so gex soil is better than no soil...:)

The soil are very damp as he just decommissioned them, so i spend a whole 2 days just to flush them with water and dry them off naturally under the sun... spend a lot of time shifting them from corridor to inside of the house as it suddenly rain... weird weather...:( 

Special tanks to Eric of AQ for selling me these nice Lapis sand as i think my current lapis sand is not sufficient to make a slope... hehe a bucket full of lapis... washed for 2 hours as they are dirty and soak with boiling water to kill off any unwanted bacteria/virus/parasite...

introducing a very GOOD tool for cleaning sand and stuff.... the Sieve... i grab the biggest size i can find and look for the smallest hole available...cheap..less than 3 bucks.. can sieve off dust from sand and soil... highly recommended as it saves me a lot of trouble... btw, you can use your fish net but i find this easier as it has 2 hooks to hook on pail... 

Welcome to my PAILRIUM(patent pending)... lol .. all my fish n shrimps are in there...

removed my plants and keep them constantly wet by spraying water

Sucked out the excess water and cleaned the "Red Clay"  Soil/pallets.. the white pipe is a gravel cleaner, most hobbyist will know it is very useful tool

This is JBL kugeln balls, right is used for 5 months, left is new... still retain its shape inside my sand...:) not bad...

back pain.... all sand removed... clean glass and stuffs... see my slender and sexy leg reflection? lol... wait till you see the real legs... haha..just joking,i am already taken and i love my wife...:)

after a back breaking cleaning of sand using sieve, i put the "red clay sand(CS)" into a cloth bag for washing machine i bought from DAISO.... why pink colour? BRO, white colour ones out of stock and i can't find black colour ones.. i don't like the colour too but nobody is gonna see it anyway

Why i use this bag? it has a ZIP where i can open and close it properly... hehe you may be asking why i put them in this bag?? stay tuned boys and girls..

Pink CS pillow... anyone wanted to lie down on it?? hehe

Ok, here is the CS and a bag of CR i bought from seaview... 

tah dah !!!  slope in making... i am using them as a foundation for slope, for aeration of soil, for BB to grow and strive.... hehe 3 benefits in this trick...:) 

left is a new DW from OTF, very NICE, right is the old DW from RED EARTH tank... hehe i reused the stuff as not to waste anything...:) Agak agak place the DW... hehe i only use my imagination and agak agak... agak agak means trial and error 

As the Gex soil is old, i used UP Initial Fertilizer sticks as base for nutrient...:)

Here are the size of the fert in case you guys never use it before... 1 bag is enough for 2 feet tank.. so i just pour them everywhere. The black colour stuff is a divider to prevent sand and soil to be mixed together and to create a boundary feel.

initial stage of pouring the sand and soil... try to create a slope and slightly slanted trail alike feel

hehe, nice? 

Added plants, rocks, needle fern, use back some of the plants from my RED EARTH tank...:)

In case you are wondering, the ammonia for first day is 2, quite high as i thought the GEX soil is already depleted of nutrients... but after 1 day, the ammonia dropped to 0...haha my old BB in the soil and filter wool is very very powerful....:)

close up shots on day 2 of adding fish...

close up shots... hehe planted my microswords sparingly to create the grassy feel...

my tank still suffers from bacteria bloom as you can see the smokey feel....

close up of part of the tank...

another close up.... hehe

Stay tuned for more updates..... follow my updates by subscribing or become a follower...:)

Part 2 of the scape : http://theplantedtankblog.blogspot.sg/2012/06/rescape-of-red-earth-to-mysterious.html

Nitrogen Cycle / Cycling of tank

This is a famous Newbie question, what is cycling of tank? i got this question uncountable times and its really a big headache for me to explain from start to end as most newbie to planted tank /Shrimp tank does not seem to like googling and researching... well, I will try to simplify in common english/singlish/manglish.

Cycling of tank does not mean phyiscally cycling using a bike in an aquarium...duh... its trying to create a bunch/colony of Beneficial Bacteria(BB) to eat up any possible ammonia,no2 and this process is called nitrogen cycle. 

Nitogen Cycle

Ammonia(NH3) is considered poisonous to fish and livestock even in low amount. However, it is commonly introduced into tank via aquasoil, fertilizer, decomposed stuffs, tap water etc sources. Thus having a colony of Beneficial Bacteria(BB) is very important to quickly eliminate NH3

BB will convert Ammonia(NH3) in the tank, thus reducing/eliminating it and producing Nitrites(NO2). So now, we have lesser ammonia in the tank, but we now have another chemical to deal with - N02. If you have a test kit, you should be able to see the nitrite levels rise around the end of the first or second week.

BB will convert the NO2 into nitrates(NO3). NO3 are not as harmful as NH3 or NO2, but NO3 is still harmful in large amounts. The quickest way to lower NO3 is to perform partial water changes or add water conditioner.

Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate although are toxic and poisonous, they are considered as plant fertilizer/nutrient therefore having them means its good for plants. However, having more than required may cause death to livestock or invite algae....

Update: NH3 only exists in high PH area, and it will be converted to ammonium (NH4) which is harmless in low PH area. this information was shared by ada website... great infomation as most of us are keeping livestock in low PH water..thus risk of NH3 poisoning is lower

Simplest explanation I can think off:-
NH3 convert into No2 convert into No3 with help of BB with sufficient oxygen

Recommended levels for planted tank with hardy livestock 

ammonia;- 0-0.5 ppm

nitrite;- 0-10 ppm

nitrate;- 0-40 ppm

The above parameters are from my own observation for keeping hardy fish and shrimps, for advance shrimps, its best to keep all NH3,NO2,NO3 at 0 at all times but its quite hard for planted tank as the fertilizer we dose contains ammonia most of the time. So the choice is yours Nice Shrimps or Nice Planted tank.

So is it essential to cycle the tank?? the answer is:- YES if you are keeping any livestock. 
How long does i need to cycle the tank?? the answer is;- to reach 0 for NH3, its norm for ADA soil user to cycle for 1-2 months

So what is the consequences of not cycling the tank properly? The answer is;- death of livestock such as less hardy fish or shrimps.

Ways of reducing cycling time

• Use of commercial BB in a bottle
• Use of commercial water treatment like seachem prime
• Use Aged tank water/filter media to introduce BB faster rather than building BB colony from scratch
• Use of commercial shrimp soil (less fertile for plants though)

IMPORTANT

Notes:- You need oxygen for the nitrogen cycle to work, Do remember to add anti chlorine into water aged the water prior Water Change. Chlorine is poisonous and will kill any BB or livestock...that is why chlorine are added into tap water.

Easy-Aqua Co2 Atomizer Review (updated 27/5/2012)

Ladies and Gentlemen... let me introduce to you the infamous Easy-aqua Co2 Atomizer....

Bought from seaview yesterday...hehe not too expensive but nice addition to the tank

Atomizer in action... my shrimp looking at it curiously...hehe

The video of the atomizer in Action... hehe do you need anymore explanation?? looks great and misting in my tank

I notice the atomizer gotten a lot of bad reviews in the net due to 

• Need of high pressure to work
• Poor silicon quality,less durable
• More expensive than common airstone/normal glass ceramic diffusor

From my observation,

• It really need around 25 kg/cm2 of pressure to work properly, so DIY co2 fans might have trouble using this
• It takes time for it to charge up for around 15-20 minutes prior the first misting/bubble
• The mist looks great and able to recreate the 7up effect... all plants pearls great...
• It really works better than normal glass ceramic diffusor as i can see the bubbles are much finer
• For workmanship, i have nothing to complain about as i just started using it for 2 days...
• Pricing around SGD 9-10 at local LFS not too expensive as there are more expensive glasswares

UPDATES on 27-5-2012

The workmanship of this product is very questionable, it stop producing fine bubbles, and big bubbles starts to leak out from the Brown transparent end. I DO NOT recommend this product.