Above 8

[hax47]

A quick update.

In the 160l tank not much interesting is happening. The cord in the left corner is now hidden by the plants, the one in the middle will be hopefully also hidden by the rotalas soon.

And the tank has new inhabitants. The older cypris were moved to the 900l tank, and the new babies now go to a non-CO2 tank. These Swabwa resplendent fish are my new favorites:

In the Dutch tank, I have put a sponge filter on the intake of the powerhead. In a few days, it has made a huge difference in water clarity. The tank starts to look like I imagined at the start, but still needs some small details, like the barely visible H'ra in the back, the Nesaea gold in the left (not visible yet), and the Hygrophila corimbosa. They all need to grow, hopefully, they will. I like the corimbosa already, it is a little bit differently colored than the lobelia before it, making some contrast there.

I should put in some fish, but they would probably ruin my Amano shrimp-raising plans. I am thinking about some blue neon tetras. Small enough to have a group of them, and simple colored enough to balance out the variety of the plants a little bit. My favorite would be a single nice betta though, but the water temperature is probably a little bit too cold for that fish, 23 ˚C.

 

[hax47]

An update on the new tank... It has not been a success story so far. It has been a bit neglected, but I planted it around the end of January with 5 pots of Utricularia graminifolia. It was funny; the plant grew in the tissue culture dish in every direction, resulting in a pillow of plants in every pot. From the outside, the plant appeared green all around, and the middle of the pillow was white; I guess that was supposed to be the roots... Anyway, I planted them. After a few days, they started to float and were nicely collected in huge clumps at the surface. I replanted them again, trying to push them as deep as possible, but after some time, they floated again... This was repeated a few times.

About two weeks ago, I discarded all the remaining plants and turned off the lights to get rid of the algae as well. A dark restart... The plan was, in case of failure with UG, to try either monte carlo or Hemianthus micranthemoides. However, since Lilaeopsis brasiliensis grows so well in the other tank, I will give it a try first. This time, I will also add a lot of frogbit on the top until the carpeting plant takes over the tank to discourage the algae on the rocks a little bit.

This is the moment before I cleaned out the plants:

 

[hax47]

Three weeks ago, I planted the Lilaeopsis brasiliensis, and it's now showing signs of new shoots sprouting here and there. I have also put some frogbit and duckweed into the tank for a smoother start. The lighting intensity is approximately half of what's in the Dutch tank. I plan to enhance it a bit; I just need to find some free time to assemble the additional lights.
I also put additional rocks in the front to break the unsightly look of the big rock with the flat front.
I took the picture after 9 pm when one of the two lights had already been switched off. Although it's not this dark during the day, I like the late evening shady ambiance it creates.

 

[MichaelJ]

Hi @hax47 Wow you got some long roots on those floating plants (Frogbit?). In one of my tanks I keep the dosing really low (NPK) and my Frogbit roots gets really long as well but the Frogbit don't procreate as much, but the individual plants are big... On the other hand, in my other tank were I dose more (NPK) my Frogbit have really short roots, procreates like crazy and the plants remain small (I try only to weed out the smaller specimens). Are you seeing something similar (low procreation and large individual plants) ?


Cheers,
Michael

 

[hax47]

Are you seeing something similar (low procreation and large individual plants) ?

I dose NPK at what I think is a higher level, but in all my tanks, the roots seem to be equally long. The leaves are not too big in this tank:

The tube is the scalebar - 4.5 cm.

In the 160 l tank, with approximately the same dosing, but more light and more plant mass, I get bigger frogbit leaves, but the roots seem to be still long:

I am not sure about the procreation, I remove some plants from time to time, but I don't know if that rate is slow or not. But it sounds logical that if a plant procreates faster it has less time to grow plant mass and long roots. And although I dose lots of ferts, I also have hard/alkaline water which could limit the uptake of some nutrients. I used to struggle with iron dosing for some time, but I suspect there might be other uptake problems too.

 

[hax47]

There is an interesting thing about the duckweed index though that I noticed. I always had fewer problems with the frogbit in my 900L tank than in the other ones. I suspected that it might be the different lighting intensity. On the 900l tank, I have much less light than on the 120 - and 160L ones. Sounds, logical, with less light the drive for the plants to grow is weaker and less likely to have deficiencies. I started cutting back on the iron dosing in the 900L tank lately, and I noticed something interesting yesterday. Check the frogbit directly under the lamp, and a little bit farther away in the aquarium at the bottom of the images:

In the second one, we can see the position of the lamp, but the coloration of the new leaves is more visible in the left photo. Under the light there seems to be some iron deficiency, but not in the corner/at the bottom, where the lighting is less intense.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Sounds, logical, with less light the drive for the plants to grow is weaker and less likely to have deficiencies. I started cutting back on the iron dosing in the 900L tank lately, and I noticed something interesting yesterday. Check the frogbit directly under the lamp, and a little bit farther away in the aquarium at the bottom of the images:

I think that makes perfect sense. One of the advantages of my <"original duckweed (Lemna minor)"> was that its faster growth rate allowed a quicker diagnosis of nutrient deficiency (and their subsequent recovery).

As you have both old and new "duckweeds", what does your Lemna look like? I would expect it would begin to <"show deficiency symptoms">, in the new leaves, before the Limnobium (Hydrocharis) laevigatum did.

cheers Darrel

 

[hax47]

As you have both old and new "duckweeds", what does your Lemna look like? I would expect it would begin to <"show deficiency symptoms">, in the new leaves, before the Limnobium (Hydrocharis) laevigatum did.

I am not sure, as a color-blind I am not good at differentiating the shades of colors. That's why I like the frogbit, it has a better contrast between leaves on the same plant. I took some out, put them next to each other, and took pictures; I am not sure, maybe some leaves on the left side (from under the lamp) are a bit brighter than on the right side (from the side of the aquarium).

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I am not sure, as a color-blind I am not good at differentiating the shades of colors.

Red green colour blindness does add another <"layer of complexity">.

... This iron deficient Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum) (thank-you to @jameson_uk for the photo, from <"Duckweed Index says Nitrogen please?">). I'm sure @jameson_uk won't mind me mentioning that he is <"red-green colour blind"> and colour blindness does cause an extra level of complexity in judging "greeness"....

I am not sure, maybe some leaves on the left side (from under the lamp) are a bit brighter than on the right side (from the side of the aquarium).

I think so, they look paler green, that could just be a <"lesser need for chlorophyll"> or it could be the start of chlorosis (below).

That's why I like the frogbit, it has a better contrast between leaves on the same plant.

Certainly true, judging leaf colour is definitely easier with a larger leaf.

cheers Darrel