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plant advice needed

James_Kye

Member
Joined
9 Feb 2009
Messages
57
Hi there my name is James ,and i have been directed to here by several people but been putting of joining as i dont want shot down lol....

i am needing advice on plants ,,,
this is going to be a long post so go stick kettle on and have a cuppa while you read.
no fish as yet in the system due to weather , and wont buy from local shops as there choice is extremely poor and pathetic.

my tank is 2ft x 1.5ft x 2ft ( water depth )
lighting is twin 36 watt Interpet daylight plus T5 PC so a total of 72 watts.
lighting is on a timer , 8 hours a day in total but with a 2 hour gap.
filtration is Eheim Liberty ( for tanks 200 L )
substrate is Tetraplant complete , one large bucket and 1 small bucket added.
CO2 is via a yeast reactor for now , but currently working on Cylinder system.
and after some advice i now add Easy-life carb and ProFit ( dose 2ml of carb every day ) and dose 15ml of ProFit once a week.

now when i started out with the tank i bought Bacopa australis and this seemed fine for 2 weeks but started to turn and die off ( was not feeding anything at the time as i was assured the planted substrate was enough for a new system ).
now i am left with nothing on the substrate and the tank looks horrid.
the tank is South American biotope and PH sits at 6.8 and temp is 75 F . i have riccia and this is going crazy and looking stunning and all other plants are looking great.
but i am wanting something to cover the entire bottom .... i have tannin in the water so the light is reduced the further down the tank.

any ground / low covering plant would e great thanks
 
totally my mistake the plant was not Bacopa but it was Hemianthus callitrichoides "" cuba ""
 
HC requires plenty of CO2 so it is likely that you need to improve this or at least improve the flow to the substrate. It's also possible that you need to dose NO3 and PO4. I believe the product you are using has only trace elements and Potassium.

Cheers,
 
not according to whats on the lable it doses a lot more than 2 things lol says it contains potassium , iron , manganese and many others.

the yeast mix is not producing enough i have been told i HAVE to have 3 bubbles a second
 
meant to also add to that ,,,
cheers for the increase flow idea though , i actually have a hydor powerhead in the tank BUT i had turned it off when i was attaching the riccia to the mangrove root and kept it off so it was not blasting it , so i will have a play with the hydor tomorrow so its not blasting water near the riccia.

and i am hoping to get rid of the yeast reactor shortly for a better proper Co2 system.
 
James_Kye said:
not according to whats on the lable it doses a lot more than 2 things lol says it contains potassium , iron , manganese and many others.

the yeast mix is not producing enough i have been told i HAVE to have 3 bubbles a second

Those other elements are trace elements! You need to read the tutorials section about EI dosing and the need to provide Nitrate and Phosphate for your plants too.

However stable CO2 is a real need with this. If you can't stretch to pressurised CO2 yet then supplement your Yeast CO2 with Excel or EasyCarbo and this will give good results.
 
i am using easycarb and easy ProFito.

as for feeding phos this hobby is worse than marines , no 2 sodding forums or people agree on same thing lol.
one tells me not to add phos as i dont have anywhere near enough plants to use it up before algae can get in on the act.

ah sod it will see what happens , as i dont have money to continually spend on yet more and more and more and more and more bottles of feed etc.
 
Well, first of all, if other forums told you buy Profito then they are doing you a disservice because they have caused you to spend about 100 times more than you need to. If you pay attention to this forum you will learn that there are much cheaper ways to dose your tank. You'll also learn that the concept of "plants using PO4 too fast for algae to get at it" is a completely ludicrous fantasy and is not based on science but rather on ignorance, propaganda and witchcraft. The denizens of Planet Earth have been given free will, so it's not surprising that opinions vary on any given subject.

So you are headed in the wrong direction if you think PO4 is bad and if you think you need more and more bottles. In fact you would do well to bin your bottles in favor of the relatively inexpensive products. We prefer to not spend money and I reckon that you are already on the path of spending more money than necessary. Unless you learn the fundamentals of plant growth you'll continue shun the things you should embrace and you'll embrace the things you ought to reject. This leads to a higher probability of failure and if you do succeed then it will be more as a result of luck than skill.

I'd suggest you start in the Tutorials section and review the articles there. You can start with EI DOSING USING DRY SALTS but read all of the articles in that section and you will soon be able to separate fact from fiction.

In any case the choice is yours. You can read the data on other forums and believe what you want to believe, or you can take a step back, study the data here and learn about the real world - the world that plants live in and the biological rules they obey.

Cheers,
 
as it happens i read using dry salts and it made absolute no sense to me what so ever and was no help to me either , for that reason i could not under stand it.

using dry salts is absolute impossible to me as it may be basic for you and everyone else but way way way way over my head. and i doubt anyone is willing to talk to me to help me understand it as it will take a very LONG time before i understand how to use them.
the other forum just so happens to be the barr report.

so there you have it why i will not be using dry ferts because it makes absolute no sense and i am not going to pretend to understand it and end up finding out ive killed everything for treating it all wrongly.

if anyone is up to the challenge of taking the time and helping me ( which i would be extremely grateful off ) then can they help me via msn , as i feel through msn would be better for me rather than reading a ream load of info that just confuses me. if so my msn is animal_artist2003@hotmail.com
thanks
james
 
James_Kye said:
i am needing advice on plants ,,,
this is going to be a long post so go stick kettle on and have a cuppa while you read.

and maybe you now should stick the kettle on while people help with good sound advice for you to read. :D

as it is you did ask for help, and so help shall be given. everything is daunting at first.

if your wanting to grow the likes of HC successfully you really need to start understanding the more complex side of the hobby if your to reap the benefits of a lush green tank.

there are other options to EI dry powders, although powders are the best IME. TPN+ for example. (Tropica plant nutrition plus) can take the pain out of dosing albeit expensive in the long run.

secondly, like clive suggests, you need to get CO2 in order.

this is not an overnight lesson which can be learnt in a day or 2. commit to learning for a few months and have the rest of your days admiring healthy plants....it's that simple! :D

this is one of the best sites for good sound information. and the best man on here for co2/fertilisation is the man above CEG! the mans a legend! 8)

others too give sound advice here. stick around for a bit, search other threads on the same issues that you have.you'll be surprised at what you can pick up ;)

happy scaping
 
well we shall see what happens now as i just went and bought GH boost and mono potassium phosphate 250 g and potassium nitrate again 250 g.

and from what rubbish calculation i have done i THINK this is what i need to be doing 7ml of phosphates every other day for 3 days and 15ml nitrate ( same as po4 ) every other day for 3 days.
and i am not sure on the GH i think it would be 10ml every other day for 3 days ?.
as well as improving Co2.
 
i now have my hydor 1 up and running this is giving me 1500 LPH and i have the HOB filter set to just under half way so all in all i think that now gives me over 2000 LPH movment, the plants are moving about a fair bit now is this ok or should the plants not be moving ?, also i know this kind of turn over is fine for marines but is it fine for tropicals? as in the past i have never had this amount of flow in a tropical tank .
 
The baseline dosing scheme for a 200L (50USG) is 2.5X the numbers for the reference 20G tank. Therefore a sample dosing scheme, in teaspoons, and using the products in your current inventory, could be as follows:

Sunday – 50% or more Water Change then dose [½ teaspoon KNO3] + [1/4 teaspoon KH2PO4] + [1 teaspoon GH Booster]
Monday – Dose Profito per bottle instructions
Tuesday - [½ teaspoon KNO3] + [1/4 teaspoon KH2PO4]
Wednesday - Dose Profito per bottle instructions
Thursday - [½ teaspoon KNO3] + [1/4 teaspoon KH2PO4]
Friday – Rest
Saturday - Rest

If you wanted to avoid using teaspoons and use a bottle, then you would simply add 6 teaspoons KNO3 + 3 teaspoons KH2PO4 + 4 teaspoons GH Booster to 600ml of tap (or distilled) water. On Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays you would dose 50ml of this mixture.

Flow is as important to submerged plants as it is for the marine environment because very similar biological and chemical process are occurring - the delivery of nutrients to the leaf surface as well as the removal of organic waste. When plants are in air they are able to breathe very easily and absorb CO2 by way of the network of internal ducting which are exposed to the atmosphere. When submerged, this pathway is flooded so that CO2 must be absorbed by osmosis across the leaf surface which is a much less efficient pathway. It's therefore necessary to saturate the water with as much CO2 as practicable and to circulate the dissolved gas to compensate for the loss of efficiency. Some plants have a better ability to absorb CO2 while submerged than others. HC appears to be a weakling in this department so that it often is unable to survive with a certain CO2 concentration level that other plants find acceptable.

One doesn't want to batter or pummel the plants with flow but if they gently wave in the current this is certainly desirable. This must be accompanied by a sufficient CO2 concentration though.

Cheers,
 
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