Plants for Creek/River Biotope?

Arrr ... gues PA is not in Germany right?

@Sven,
I am not in Germany at moment, and have never looked for fatheadminnows there, but found this source in internet source for the gold form ( die Goldelritze). The wild form seems hard to find in Germany. In USA, wild form are often mixed with gold form in petstore aquariums. Find them from German source earlier, but now can not, or were your minnows from N America?
http://www.fischfarm...ldelritze-.html

Edited by flusskrebs, 22 August 2013 - 09:28 AM.

_{I have started aquarium cycle now (although some Vallisneria and mosses in aquarium for week already and add more Ludwigia). No fish, but with colony of bladder snails, which came on the plants and even lay eggs on my powerheads. Not sure what there is for them to eat at moment, except tiny amounts of algae on the plant leaves, or the plants themselves. Added bacteria and ammonium chloride and test on third day, like instructions. 0ppm for Ammonium, 5ppm (or is it 2 - hard to tell colour difference from API kit) and 5ppm for Nitrate. pH is 7.2 and water temp 27C. This mean that the bacteria or plants start to work and have converted the ammonium? Will test again in 2 days to see, what happen here. The larger snails not appear to like it (probably the nitrite concentrations), as they congregate around filter outtake, which they not do earlier.}

Edited by flusskrebs, 30 August 2013 - 11:54 AM.

Plants don't convert ammonium, they eat it. They permanently remove it from the water, until they die and begin to rot. Here is more info. Check out Table 2; plants can eat 26 ppm ammonium in 4 hours. http://www.theaquari...ical_Filtration The caveat is that the plants have to be actually growing to be eating ammonium. Mosses don't grow very speedily. Vallisneria does (or should. See if you can see any new growth). They can go into shock and not grow for a short time initially after being planted if the planting process was rough.

The plants are often coated in nitrosomonas bacteria. They compete for food (ammonia). Who wins the competition depends on how fast the plants are growing. It sounds like if you've got 5 ppm nitrate, the bacteria are getting a chunk of it. Keep adding the ammonium chloride. The bacteria is rapidly dividing as it eats and grows, and once the plants settle in, they'll also start competing for it. You'll know the tank is ready for fish when you are adding ammonium every day but all you see is nitrate.

By the way, something to keep in mind with test kits is that they should be replaced a year after they're opened. New ones are $10 on ebay for 130 tests, which is plenty. (Yours might be new, I don't know, but it's worth thinking about.)

The test kit is API Freshwater Master Kit and I bought from That Pet Place, so I am sure, that it is current. The bottles were opened first time on same day as test. The colours 2 and 5 ppm on chart are not that easy to distinguish (2 similar shades of purple). Mine was more reddish purple, so maybe more toward 2.0ppm. For example chart look like this (not my photo): http://ecx.images-am...61i6ANpTLAL.jpg

Edited by flusskrebs, 30 August 2013 - 01:25 PM.

Ah, yes, those are very similar. I like that there's a big color difference between 0 and 1 ppm. That's nice. That's the region we mostly care about, once the tank's cycled.

I added more ammonium chloride and waited 2 days, then tested again. Ammonium and Nitrite 0 ppm, Nitrates 5.0 ppm (nitrates should be higher?). Now do the 24 hour test, to see how much is consumed in 24 hrs - add ammonium chloride at 2 ppm dose. 12 hrs later, ammonium and nitrites are 0.25 ppm. Will test again after 24 hrs. I am skeptical about the wonder products speed (I used One and Only bacteria), but there are several other factors. The filter was used and some of the media still wet, so some bacteria could have survived. Also plants, and some gravel from other tanks and snails that come with them could contribute. Tank was set up a couple weeks, before I began to add bacteria and ammonia, so I have no tests from that time.

Oh hey, I just noticed you're a 'guest', not a 'member'. I opened up a trade on the trading dock and listed some high current plants. I'd forgotten that a lot of people couldn't see the trading dock unless they join NANFA.