S. Repens Advice

[Sathish]

Hi All,

I have a 60L Aquahome tank, I have Tropica Aqua-soil as the substrate. Tank is about a 6 weeks old now.

My S. Repen's rapidly melted away in my low tech tank which I have been dosing with TNC Carbon and Tropica Premium.

I decided to hack them them down to the stem's as it looked like a mess and now they seem them starting to recover slowly with new growth. Only change is I switched from Tropica Premium to Evolution Aqua complete plant food, could this have a difference on what was missing?

I am new to planted tanks so is this the nature of this plant? Do I need to perform this hacking down to stem level on regular basis to trigger the growth?

Thanks

 

[alto]

Tropica S repens article

https://tropica.com/en/articles/about-staurogyne-repens/

 

[Matt @ ScapeEasy]

Tropica premium doesn't contain macros whereas the EA complete fert contains both micros and macros. That said, S Repens does have a tendency to die back before growing again, this is the plant adapting to underwater growth and it should not require doing again fingers crossed once adapted.

 

[Mick.Dk]

Like said above:
the Tropica premium fertliser contain all nutrients needed for aquarium plamts to grow well....... . Except N and P and with less K. This product is designed for tanks with many fish and little acceleration in plant mass (= few plants and/or slow growing plants) . Fish food and -waste is supposed to deliver these nutrients.
The Tropica specialised fertiliser contain exactly the same........ plus N and P and with more K. This product is designed for tanks with moderate or low amount of fish and high acceleration of plant mass (=many plants and fast growing plants) .
The Tropica soil has a high capability of exchanging ions (=AEC/CEC), meaning it will bind/release nutrients from/to surrounding water, since these nutrients are in their ion-form.
In your case, this likely means your S. repens first spent energy adapting to life submerse and thereafter did not have access to enough nutrients, to gain energy for new growth. Using a fertliser including all nutrients ( ex. Tropica specialised) will therefore have brought things back in balance and make S. repens grow.

 

[Sathish]

Like said above:
the Tropica premium fertliser contain all nutrients needed for aquarium plamts to grow well....... . Except N and P and with less K. This product is designed for tanks with many fish and little acceleration in plant mass (= few plants and/or slow growing plants) . Fish food and -waste is supposed to deliver these nutrients.
The Tropica specialised fertiliser contain exactly the same........ plus N and P and with more K. This product is designed for tanks with moderate or low amount of fish and high acceleration of plant mass (=many plants and fast growing plants) .
The Tropica soil has a high capability of exchanging ions (=AEC/CEC), meaning it will bind/release nutrients from/to surrounding water, since these nutrients are in their ion-form.
In your case, this likely means your S. repens first spent energy adapting to life submerse and thereafter did not have access to enough nutrients, to gain energy for new growth. Using a fertliser including all nutrients ( ex. Tropica specialised) will therefore have brought things back in balance and make S. repens grow.

Thanks, very well explained and learning everyday