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Plant Identification Please?

ryiah

Seedling
Joined
4 Apr 2010
Messages
5
Location
Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Hi There,

I've just planted some plants that I received from Plants Alive. It was the Surplus 50 plants and no I.D came with them.

So far I've ID'd Vallis, Amazon Sword, Java Fern, Cabomba.

I was just wondering if I could get help with the others?

Many Thanks for your help

http://picasaweb.google.com/sdow81/AquariumPlants#5467059918014677218
http://picasaweb.google.com/sdow81/AquariumPlants#5467060066285670402

not sure what the small and the tall ones are, as you see the tall one is starting to yellow :(
http://picasaweb.google.com/sdow81/AquariumPlants#5467060174145854706
http://picasaweb.google.com/sdow81/AquariumPlants#5467060317546992402

Out of water, I can only identify Amazon Sword in this bunch.
http://picasaweb.google.com/sdow81/AquariumPlants#5466295746520006386

I can Identify Cabomba, Java Fern, Vallis
http://picasaweb.google.com/sdow81/AquariumPlants#5466295716612278194


As you see, some of the grasses have started turning yellow/brown and the leaves seem to be going transparent. I have an under substrate fertiliser (tetra complete substrate) however I doesn't seem like the roots are getting through to the substrate as I may have put too much gravel down, I was told to not plant Amazon Sword too deep, but it just keeps floating up!

I am currently doing a fishless cycle on my tank with ammonia
I have no C02 and don't plan on getting any
I do plan on getting liquid fertiliser, just not sure what yet. I've been reading up on E.I? however it seems a bit overkill for what I have, so would fertiliser such as tetra plantamin or easy carbo be sufficient?
 
ryiah said:
I am currently doing a fishless cycle on my tank with ammonia
You don't need to do this with a planted tank. It's not a good idea, especially if you have unbalanced lighting.
ryiah said:
I have no C02 and don't plan on getting any
Therefore the result is this:
ryiah said:
As you see, some of the grasses have started turning yellow/brown and the leaves seem to be going transparent.

ryiah said:
...I was told to not plant Amazon Sword too deep...
It is suggested that you immediately stop listening to whomever told you this.

If you don't plan on adding either liquid or gaseous CO2 then you need to pay more attention to control of your lighting.

Cheers,
 
Hmm, this is what I find confusing? I read on here that some people don't use fertiliser or C02 and their plants grow fine - so I take it they have really strong lights? I'm just using the standard tank lamp - 15w tube light. I guess to have any live plants in a tank requires a lot of work? I asked for easy to grow plants from the shop and those are the ones they sent...
I've been researching plants for ages now and I just keep getting swallowed up in all the high-tech stuff, which I really don't want to do..I just wanted a few plants in my tank to make it look nicer and for the fish to hide in when I get them.
 
Well I do understand that many find it all very confusing and just want to keep it simple, but you do have to study at least a little and understand the basics, otherwise you'll continually make the wrong assumptions. For example, have you thought about why you made the assumption that not using CO2 and ferts means that the person used stronger lighting? Reality is the complete opposite. If you decide not to dose or to use CO2 you have to use less lighting, otherwise you'll have poor plant health, which is exactly what you have.

Why don't you give us more details of your tank because we cannot guess what you have or what you've done. What size is the tank, what kind of filtration do you have, what kind of a 15 watt tube is it - T5, T8? If you do not know what type of light bulb can you tell the brand name or model?

The hard work involved with plant growing is more about learning and understanding. It doesn't help when you only learn the myths.

Cheers,
 
Thanks very much for taking the time :) it's all so overwhelming!!

I have a 60l tetra art tank
t8 15w tube light timed for 10 hours
tetra easy crystal 300 filter
heater set to 28c (supposed to help with cycle at higher heat)
tetra tec 150 airpump 1 air stone
5mm pea gravel
tetra complete substrate under gravel
plants are the ones mentioned above

i'm awaiting a liquid test kit, using a strip test nitrites were 10 mg/l and nitrates were 250mg/l!!!
I think that's it!
 
ryiah said:
Thanks very much for taking the time :) it's all so overwhelming!!

I have a 60l tetra art tank
t8 15w tube light timed for 10 hours
tetra easy crystal 300 filter
heater set to 28c (supposed to help with cycle at higher heat)
tetra tec 150 airpump 1 air stone
5mm pea gravel
tetra complete substrate under gravel
plants are the ones mentioned above

i'm awaiting a liquid test kit, using a strip test nitrites were 10 mg/l and nitrates were 250mg/l!!!
I think that's it!
Wow, The Matrix really does have you. :wideyed:

I'd like to make a few suggestions. It's your choice to either believe what I'm going to tell you or to reject it outright as hogwash. You are in control;

The first thing that I think you are attributing way too much importance to is the speed of cycling your tank. What's your hurry? You really cannot change the speed at which the tank develops a stable population of bacteria. It takes about 6-8 weeks. End of story. Prior to this time the tank as a system is in continual flux and this is when most people get an up close introduction to algal blooms. You have the rest of your life to add fish so you should not even be thinking about speeding things up just so you can get fish in the tank. This is a complete waste of energy. Adding ammonia to the tank can easily trigger algal blooms. High temperatures are favourable to algal blooms. Reduce the temperature to 25c and learn to have patience. Use the time to read and learn about plants. Rushing like a maniac to get fish in the tankjust causes more headaches and when things go wrong having fish in the tank only serves to tie your hands and to complicate you life even more.

A planted tank, especially one that is not gas injected has no need for an air pump. When plants are healthy they inject oxygen into the water much more effectively than an air pump can. In fact using the air pump drives off the oxygen that the plants work so hard to produce. Plants also require Carbon dioxide which is also driven off by those bubbles. The idea in a planted tank is to avoid breaking the surface and to let the plants do the job.

If your so-called liquid test kit never comes, it will be too soon. There is no water in the UK or in Western Europe that has appreciably higher than about 50ppm. This is negotiated by treaty and by law. If you are located somewhere else then that might be a different story but it's very doubtful that you have 250ppm NO3. Although, having said all that, if you are adding ammonia then the job of the bacteria is to convert ammonia to Nitrate, so if you have not performed a water change you would in fact have very high NO2/NO3 ultimately. So all you have to do is to perform a massive water change several times per week in order to lower the levels. If you are intentionally adding a nitrate source to the water you should not be surprised that the tank generates high levels of Nitrate, should you?

Nitrate is very good for plants. So is phosphate. You therefore need to unlearn all the bad thing you've been told about nutrients in the water being bad.

Your 15 watt T8 bulb is actually quite good for a 15 gallon tank. This is not over the top at all, so it's surprising that you are suffering CO2 shortfall, but of course air pump might be to blame for this. Instead of throwing money away with test kits, which are virtually useless at this stage, why not buy a liquid carbon supplement like Excel or Easycarbo? this will make it easier to get the plants going. Just add a few ml per day. This would be much better value. You could always slowly withdraw the liquid carbon but for now I reckon it might be better than trying to go cold turkey, so to speak,


Cheers,
 
Wow thanks for your reply! I think the differences in opinion between forums dedicated to fish and ones dedicated to plants is vastly different! Obv I've been getting all my advice from the fish forum, so far. Now I don't know what advice to take!

I am in no hurry whatsoever to cycle my tank, I was fully prepared to wait 8 weeks. All the reading I have done say you need ammonia to kick start your cycle - as how does it start converting to nitrites without ammonia!?

I was in 2 minds not to buy an airpump as I was thinking that plants produce oxygen, so why buy an airpump. I will be glad to get rid of it as it is so noisy!

I'm glad that my light is ok, I didn't think it would be, considering it came with the tank.

Thanks for all your advice, at this stage I feel completely stuck in the middle and I don't know what to do! I'm off to do yet more Reading and try weigh it all out!

Do you keep fish too?
 
ryiah said:
Wow thanks for your reply! I think the differences in opinion between forums dedicated to fish and ones dedicated to plants is vastly different! Obv I've been getting all my advice from the fish forum, so far. Now I don't know what advice to take!

Hi, taking care of fish and taking care of plants is not the same, but if you take good care of your plants you will have happier and healthier fish. :)

Ceg writes funny, and some of this terms are not so easy to follow, but it is advisable to read his articles, sometimes more than once, it will give you a solid basis where to build your plant knowledge. It has helped me at least.

If you want to keep a nice looking planted tank, without algae, then follow the posts on this forum, you will learn more here than in any book that has been published. I also very much doubt that any shop will give you as much advice as you will get here.

Light is like an engine to plant grow, but you need to provide the fuel to make the plants grow, such as nutrients and CO2. If you go lean on nutrients and CO2 you should not provide much light. If you provide too much light, and no food to make the plants grow, then they will grow stunted and weak, and algae, which requires much less nutrients than plants, will take over.

What I understand is the following (someone correct me if it is wrong):

The triumvirate is:
- CO2
- Light
- Nutrients

The maximum light the plants will use is 5wpg (watts per gallon), anything over that they cannot process.

CO2 you can provide up to a point, where it starts to be become poisonous to the creatures on your tank, and nutrients do need to be in massive amounts to become poisonous.

So a high tech tank would be close to 5wpg, quite a lot of CO2 and enough ppm's, around:
Nitrate (NO3) 20ppm per week
Potassium (K) 30ppm per week
Phosphate (PO4) 3ppm per week
Magnesium (Mg) 10ppm per week
Iron (Fe) 0.5ppm per week

Even if you provide all of the above then you still need to get the flow right, the water turnover, and provide enough water changes to get rid of what the plants let out during their growth. A balancing act.

You got 60L, close to 13 gallons, and you have 15W of light, so 15w/13g= 1wpg.

About temperature, you should decrease it asap, high temperature increases the metabolism of a variety of organisms, including algae, they will just multiply faster.
Drop it to 24/25, perfect to a variety of plants.

Regarding the Amazons, they are heavy root feeders, I actually maintain mine on pots that are 10cm tall, and they are well buried on the soil, growing very well, check some of the pics on my flickr page, you will see that they are doing very well.

A article that will help you understand the relationship between light, nutrients and CO2 is this one http://www.ukaps.org/EI.htm. I printed it and ready it for a week daily, as there is a lot of information to digest. Even now, after almost 3 months, I still revisit and find new information on it. :)

Keeping plants is more than a hobby, it is a way of life. Welcome.!
 
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