What determines when plants are 'established'?

[cdwill]

There are a lot of recommendations for steps to take with a planted tank once the plants are 'established'.

What exactly do folks mean by this? Is it "once the plants start to grow taller/wider/new leaves"? Is it "once they've rooted into substrate/attached to hardscape"? Is it "after they've been in the tank for awhile"? Or maybe "after they've transitioned from emersed to submerged"?

I ask this because these periods of time vary from one to another (and from plant to plant), and it's tough to know when some have happened sufficiently (like rooting).

Any thoughts on this?

 

[AndyMcD]

I've just been wondering about this.

For example, Rotala Rotundifolia has round leaves when grown emersed (access to 400ppm CO2 in air). However, once underwater it will gradually lose its emersed leaves and grow new underwater leaves. During this change, it may be drawing goodness from the old leaves so perhaps best not to cut off versus it may also be releasing organics into the water.

Organics get broken down to ammonia by bacteria. It's thought that increased ammonia can lead to algae outbreaks.

With active soils, such as ADA Amazonia, they release ammonia when new, so it is recommended you change water frequently.

Once plants are rooted and have converted to their new life underwater, they'll absorb ammonia, nitrates, phosphates and nutrients from the water column, leaving less available for algae to flourish.

However, until plants are established and active soils have released their ammonia, frequent water changes are essential to keep concentrations of ammonia and possibly organics down.

 

[AndyMcD]

Also, expert DW1305 (Darrel) frequently recommends adding floating plants, even if this only at the start (easy to get rid).

They have access to the 400ppm of CO2 and access to the excess nutrients in the water, so their rate of growth is less constrained. They're closer to the lights and receive more light (grow faster) and shade what is underneath (too much light early on associated with algae outbreak). They can help to create a balance early on.

A pot of Tropica 1-2 Grow will be free from algae and snails. Only buy one pot. It will grow fast and you'll be throwing half away very quickly.

 

[zozo]

Is it "once they've rooted into substrate/attached to hardscape"?

In a way among some other factors you could see it like that. In aquatic plants you might need to consider most plants we get are emersed growen in the nurseries and need the transition time. But still even a already submerse form moved to an other tank, still needs to get used to its new invironment and goes into a kind of dormancy for a X period.. But once it is used to it and starts to develop new growth it's slowly astablishing, most plants planted in the substrate develop roots first to a certain extend before growing new leaves. You could say the same about terrestrial growing plants, by the time it's maturing and growing healthy enough and ready for it's first trimming session it could be considered astablisched in its invironment. In periodic perspective this differs from one plant to another even within the same species different invironments can play a significant role in how in astablishes as well as the health of the seed or mother plant it came from..

 

[Chris Jackson]

It may sound like a flippant answer but I think you could judge it as when you're no longer asking yourself the question "is this plant now established?" Basically if you need to ask then it probably isn't...