Aquarium Plant Nursery Owner Woes

[aquaticscapes]

Hello to all, I have been reading this forum for quite some time. I get the estimative index, which I use, the flow in the aquarium (back to front circular), the CO2 levels maintained at 30 ppm's. I tend to run lighting longer than most here, but am religious about all other details. (when I cut the light back plant loss was considerable) The problem we encounter is pulling plants out of the aquarium for shipment. I believe that is the biggest single factor in our algae outbreaks. That is just an educated guess however. Typically we plant a 125 with six different species like ludwigia, myrio, rotala, all fairly fast growing plants, but we either cut stems or pull them from the substrate (eco complete) and have not had success with algae free aquariums. We are currently moving to emergent growth more and more as we are tiring of plant loss and work invloved in dealing with algae. Black brush (BBA) is the most common, and we get heavy deposits of GSA. Any comments would be appreciated? Regards, Don Matakis

 

[Garuf]

Increase the co2, 30ppm is a arbitary figure, if you're noticing algae it's almost certainly light/co2 related, upping the co2 is normally the first port of call.
Figures such as turnover, tank size, lighting, par anything would be useful in giving more answers.

 

[wearsbunnyslippers]

trim the stems level with the substrate instead of pulling them out if this is worrying you and test your theory...

a lot of places go for emergent growth, but then you have to watch out for things like mites and aphids etc.

what lights are you using?

if you are growing really dense bushes of stems then flow might still be a problem.

 

[Dan Crawford]

I agree with BunnySlippers, cut the plants at the substrate. By uprooting them often you will be getting massive amonia spike which result in the algae that you're seeing. I'm making this judgement on the basis that your substrate is not brand new.

As Bunny says, if you have fast growing stems in a 125L tank then i'm pretty certain that the nutrient and CO2 distribution will be poor. What is your supposed LPH?

Why do you have you lights on for longer? Plants can only photosynthesize for 8hrs, after 8hrs they can no longer accept the light etc that you're giving them, leaving surplice for the algae with which you're having problems.

Are you doing weekly water changes?

If this was a problem in my tank i'd:
double the water change schedule
remove any livestock and crank up the CO2
have my lights on for 8hrs only
ensure that the flow is fantastic, maybe add a couple more powerheads
do some filter maintenance

 

[ghostsword]

Why use substrate at all? Why not have a bare bottom tank and the plants on pots on either Filter Wool or Rock Wool? If you dose the tank most of the stem plants will get the nutrients anyway, and the heavy rooters, such as Echinodorus and Crypts, can have root tabs placed on the pots.

Also, Emersed growth can be done, just ensure that the tank is covered and the humidity high.

 

[aquaticscapes]

Lighting in most is not strong, I would say more in the medium range, (consists of a total of 512 total watts over the length and width of the 125 gal., not great reflectors) turnover by filtration in a 125 gallon consists of three cannisters with three spraybars across the six foot length, each turns over 350 gallons (1325L) per hour. Plants are swaying due to water movement. I am dosing 1 3/4 tsp KN03 3x a week, 3/4 tsp KH2P04 3x a week, 3/4 tsp (CSM+B) 3x a week. Fifty percent water change per week. Removing leaves and debris daily. Up the CO2 to what? I am using a drop checker with 4DKH and showing a light lime green color, just before the yellow. It is a lot easier to stick a stem in the substrate rather than having to pot with rock wool which we considered which is time consuming. We typically start with 240 stems of each species per planting so with eight species that is almost two thousand plants, a time consuming and daunting task with rock wool versus substrate. Perhaps we will need to try that after all in spite of the time required. Regards, Don Matakis

 

[ceg4048]

Lighting in most is not strong, I would say more in the medium range, (consists of a total of 512 total watts over the length and width of the 125 gal., not great reflectors)

If that's T5 lighting then it's a lot of light.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt the appearance of BBA is a CO2 stability issue. It's an extraordinarily poor assumption that one has 30ppm CO2 in a tank. That almost never happens, especially with high biomass. GSA is both PO4 and CO2 related so this might confirm that you have poor CO2 for your given conditions..

CO2 grows plant mass and lighting accelerates the growth rate. I assume that since you're selling the plants you want to bring the crop to market as soon as possible. So there's no point in lowering the light intensity but there is every reason to improve your CO2. As Dan The Man mentions, 8 hours of light is about as much as you will need. The plants start to "close up shop" after that so leaving the lights on for longer only encourages algae.

There is no issue with pulling plants out of the bed as long as it's accompanied by a water change. It may not even be an issue without a water change as long as the substrate isn't disturbed too much. Good flow helps here too.

What's probably happening in a high biomass tank is that the CO2 levels fluctuate in the morning as the machines come up to speed. Removing biomass raises the CO2 level since fewer plants are consuming CO2. So if you're constantly removing plants with a marginal CO2 level the fluctuations give rise to BBA.

You need to change the injection rate and the timing so that the dropchecker is bright yellow at lights ON. Adhere to the 8 hour limit. Turn the gas off a few hours before lights OFF. This reduces CO2 consumption (which obviously affects your bottom line).

In any case, emergent growth is a much more cost effective way because you don't need to spend money on CO2, electricity for filtration and you don't have any algae issues to boot. Emergent growth also gives your customers plants with a higher energy reserve. It only makes sense to grow submerged specimens from species which have difficulty transitioning to submerged, not the easy varieties such as you've listed.

Cheers,

 

[aquaticscapes]

Thank you so much for that evaluation, all of you. All of that makes sense. The plants themselves were displaying smaller than normal due to the CO2 levels not high enough no doubt. In another tank where CO2 levels were obviously higher the same plants were robust looking. We installed an eight foot by four foot ebb and flow two months ago, they are not cheap even wholesale, around a thousand US for all of the equipment needed, but growth has been phenominal. If the drop checker is bright yellow how does that relate to ppm's? Does alkalinity need to be checked against PH to be accurate? Some tanks we keep shrimp or fish in for at least some algae control. How high can we go without stressing them? 40 ppm's is my understanding for most? I will inbcrease CO2 and reduce the photoperiod. Regards, Don Matakis

 

[ceg4048]

Well, using shrimp for algae control - and then having to lower the CO2 to keep the shrimp alive - which then causes CO2 related algae... is a bit like having the tail wagging the dog. I never use shrimp or fish for algae control. The solution is to simply not get algae. This is done by having a truly unlimited conditions in the tank. Unlimited means infinite nutrition and infinite CO2 availability. If you want to have unlimited conditions but still to keep fauna then you have to lower the light and then every other parameter can be lowered from there but will still be unlimited from the plants perspective.

When you remove fauna from a tank you are then free to drive the CO2 levels as high as you want. Here's a clue; within 1 hour of lights ON you should have uncontrollable pearling. I always tell people not to use pearling as a guide but in this commercial sense, and with no restrictions, the sky becomes the limit. Remove the shrimp and forget about PPM/pH because these data no longer have any relevance in an infinite space/time continuum. As I said, your only concern is to minimize the cost of CO2. 5 hours of truly epic CO2 in an 8 hour photoperiod will do the trick. Algae will be nonexistent because they will be too bored with all that plant growth rate. The price? You'll need to probably double the nutrient loading and to do a better job of removing organic waste.


Cheers,

 

[aquaticscapes]

Well............ somehow I knew that would be the reply. It makes sense. Thank you for the input and I will put it to the test. The fish and shrimp goe into one of my home aquariums then. I will report back after it is implemented. I will be making the changes this weekend and so next week hopefully I will have a good report. Regards, Don Matakis

 

[Mortis]

You could also try reducing the light and keeping the current CO2 levels the same. If the shrimp are doing well in current conditions then you can have them in the tank. This will help with the organic wastes, algae and also increase your income if you have fast breeding shrimp like red cherries.