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Dragon's Grove

Looks like I'll be getting one of those as backup then! I will still buy a new glass one though, who can resist a shiny bit of glass? :p
 
ditching the drop checker in favour of a ph probe/ meter. I don't miss a drop checker at all...

You are definitely right. What sort of price is it for a decent reliable pH meter and some calibration liquid. Can you recommend a brand or a good place to buy one?
 
Sorry I can't help you very much there. I'm using a probe with an old Dennerle digital PH controller I've got but there is a good selection here http://www.digital-meters.com/chemical-analysis-c2/ph-meters-c28 I'd be a tad suspicious of the cheapest ones mind, get a goodish one with the option to replace the probe as these wear out. This looks good to me http://www.digital-meters.com/chemi...with-replaceable-electrode-hanna-hi-99104-p62 but this is just what I've found from some quick searching. I've found that electrodes and calibration solutions are generally better value from non aquarium specific shops.
 
Hi There, Why ???? Just watch the plants ;) They will let you know :thumbup:

Hi, Yes they let you know something is wrong but it takes an awful lot of experience to know exactly what they are saying and it can be species specific, plus there's an awful lot of species to learn to listen to. Is the MC melting because of CO2 water and fert issues or because it is still just settling into its new environment? I suspect mostly the latter but I don't know for sure. Knowing the PH profile in real time can only help us gain better understanding for the management of these variables.
 
Is the MC melting because of CO2 water and fert issues or because it is still just settling into its new environment?
It's really not very complicated. We complicate things because of our refusal to realize the truth.
Melting only ever occurs due to poor CO2 uptake and has nothing to do with water or fertilizer. It's the same story for every plant.

Cheers,
 
It's really not very complicated. We complicate things because of our refusal to realize the truth.
Melting only ever occurs due to poor CO2 uptake and has nothing to do with water or fertilizer. It's the same story for every plant.

Cheers,

Well personally I so want to realise and accept that truth.

In the past before I joined this forum and started stressing about CO2 and flow I'd just plant things like Eusteralis Stellata and watch the leaves die back before new growth took over and the thing would then grow so rampantly that I'd tire of it, similar with Didiplis Diandra as I recall. Seemed to be normal behaviour.

Is this type of emerssed growth die back thing is totally avoidable with better CO2 management?

Crossochelius here seems to be doing everything right but is still having issues and I've got some Juncus Repens added on Christmas Eve that is behaving in a similar manner...
 
Yes it's possible but the level of difficulty is related to the amount of light, temperature, as well as whether or not fauna are present. An easy way to curtail the loss is to float the new plants for a week or so prior to planting.

Cheers,
 
An easy way to curtail the loss is to float the new plants for a week or so prior to planting.

Never heard of that before, could you explain what is involved and the reason it works? Obviously it's not a possibility for me now but it sounds interesting.
 
Never heard of that before, could you explain what is involved and the reason it works? Obviously it's not a possibility for me now but it sounds interesting.

I think the biggest failure in tank startup is due an assumption by hobbyists that just because a plant is aquatic, then this automatically means that the plant can adapt immediately to live under water or that the plant prefers to be submerged There are only a handful of plants that live 100% of the time in water. For half the year, normally in the dry season, the aquatic plant is dry and lives like any typical terrestrial plant. The leaf structure during this time is adapted to being suspended in air. The movement of CO2 and other gases such as oxygen is through the pores (stomata) on the leaf. These are basically ventilation holes. When the wind blows, like a flute, the pressure differences across these stomata facilitate movement of the gases through the leaf. Look at the cross sectional diagram here:
leafcrosssection.GIF


Terrestrial leaves are built to protect itself from bacteria, pests and water intrusion. Look at the image and note that the outermost layers of the leaf are coated with something called a cuticle, which is basically the "fingernail" of the leaf. This is a hard, water repellent, waxy substance that gives leaves that shiny appearance.

So imagine that I now take this leaf and dunk it under water. Do you think this mechanism can still work effectively as it did in air? Those air spaces, where critical gas exchange occurs so easily in air get flooded. CO2, Oxygen and other gasses move 10,000 time more slowly in water than they do in air. The leaf literally drowns. The plant has to make a new leaf structure that works in water, not in air.

Haven't you ever noticed that the shape and appearance of a submersed plant is entirely different than when you buy it from the nursery? The submersed leaves are spongy, slippery and flaccid, dries out and crumbles easily if left too long out of water. In submersed leaves the composition of the cuticle has to change. It has to allow more water and gas to penetrate, so it either becomes much thinner, becomes less hydrophobic, or disappears entirely. This allows gases and nutrients to move directly to the sites that use them instead of depending solely on the vascular transport mechanisms.

In natural habitats, when the rainy season starts, the flood waters rise relatively slowly. This gives the plant time to trigger the changes while still allowing them to breathe through the upper leaves. The stems elongate to keep the upper leaves out of the water as long as possible while the areas that are submerged start to grow new leaf structure.

The temperature falls. Gasses dissolve better as the water is cooler.

The water gets cloudy or murky. This reduces the PAR where the new leaves are growing and reduces their requirement for CO2 uptake.

The Matrix programs us to dump plants in water, to avoid feeding nutrients and to zap them immediately with megawattage. Do you still think this is wise?

When you float the plants it helps to trigger the change to a submersed form while still allowing some leaves to breathe. In a way, it's like handing them a snorkel.

You can still do all these small things to help new arrivals as well as during start up. Reduce the lighting for a few weeks, lower the temperature and float some plants. Of course it's not practical for some plants like carpet plants or mosses, which are difficult enough to get them rooted in the substrate, but it is very helpful for difficult plants.

Cheers,
 
You can still do all these small things to help new arrivals as well as during start up.

Hi Clive,

I too do this for emersed growth that introduce in my tank, but from that comment do you imply that this method will also be affect for plants that were previously grown in a high tech which will be planted in a low tech environment?
 
Hi Michael,
Apologies for being unclear. If you purchase plants which have already being submersed, then of course, the transformation is not an issue. However, no one knows how much CO2 and nutrition the plant was adapted to in the original tank compared to YOUR tank. A plant will suffer CO2 failure if the new CO2 value is less than what it was previously, even if both CO2 values are high tech...just being high tech really means nothing to the plant. It's entirely possible that the previous owner's tank had better CO2 management (i.e. flow distribution and so forth) than you do. Or maybe that tank had less light than you do. There are lot's of different possibilities, so the safest thing to do is to lower the light and temperature for the new arrival, just in case your CO2 isn't as good as the tank from which they came.

Hope this clarifies...

Cheers,
 
So this raises the question of why so many people buy emersed grown plants. I know they travel better but a few mashed leaves versus an entire structural reset seems preferable, doesn't it?
 
Hi, crossocheilus.
Clive is right about it and his explanation. The plants what are being sold to use are mostly emersed grown and you don't no how. I now that a lot of the nursery are giving they a lot of nutrition to them to survive the first weeks. When this is used by them in a submersed state and are not giving it by a lfs when you buy then they are already in a state of dying, you can see this by there roots. The trick is to get healty again and floating is one of them. What I do is getting a small part of the plants when I buy them and grow them emersed. When you do this it is easy to grow more from them and they do adapt better when you submersed them again. If I were you I would take out some mc. and grow them emersed ( I have mc growing in a small cub all year around on a window shelf).

Patrick
 
Yeah, plants grow 10X easier (and probably 10X cheaper) out of water than when grown submersed. No algae to worry about, plenty of free CO2 etc. Some plants take ages to transform so it's always better to buy submersed specimens if available. Other plants transform more easily. As I mentioned, simply procedures to facilitate their transformation (like not zapping them with photon torpedoes) is all that is needed in most cases.

Cheers,
 
Co2 just ran out :mad:

Less than a month, 2kg fe, I checked for leaks using water and washing up liquid a few times and found nothing.

So to summarise:

Good flow
Ridiculous co2 rate
Ei
medium light
Liquid carbon

Gets me melting plants and recently - algae.

Garrrrhhh I'm already understanding the people who go low tech and love it.

So what to do

I'm thinking go to 1 39w t5?
Clean diffuser (up new atomizer) or even different diffusion method - what do you use Ceg?
Maybe dose less potassium phosphate (need to think about this but I saw that someone said it increases growth rates thus co2 demand - any thoughts?)
I doubt my flow needs increasing but I could add a 1000lph eheim compact pump
Double dose liquid carbon

In the mean time I am not sure what to do, I can get co2 set up for Monday afternoon/evening so probably just ambient light for 2 days? But my hairgrass was just recovering from the accidental blackout :banghead:

Thinking about it I could get a jbl 500g co2 from maidenhead if I leave soon even if it does cost £20 :( (2kg fe £10)
 
Really? Surely that is really expensive? How can you work out how much to dose? Isn't liquid carbon and really low light the best option for 2 days?
 
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