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baffled and in need of help

Hi,
Yes, removal of the reflectors will make some difference. All things begin with the light intensity. Whenever there is a plant health problem decrease in lighting intensity is the most effective step, even if it's just by 10%-20%.

Cheers,
 
right , reflecters removed , powerhead , reactor , clear acrylic tube , flexible hosing and elbows ordered . hopefully the combination of all these will help things along
 
ceg4048 said:
In the OP's case, as in many cases, tanks are started with healthy plants grown terrestrially at a nursery where the plants are able to accrue and store energy reserves in the form of sugars and other starches. When placed in the tank they can grow for weeks using these food reserves but at some point they need to produce sugar using water and CO2 to replenish the reserves. High light causes fast growth, but that also means that the sugars are used up faster to fuel the fast growth. If either water or CO2 is not in abundance the sugar production stalls and the plants starve to death. That is exactly what is happening in this tank. The solution is to reduce the growth rate demand by lowering the light and to increase the production of sugar by improving the availability of CO2.

Cheers,
Click to expand...

Hi sorry to hijack your thread mate, but I have been reading it and a question came to my mind about what Clive is saying there.
I totally agree what you are saying there about adaptation from emerge to submerge form, and that a the start plants (emerge) are relying on theirs stock when they are flooded. So as you said if you put these plants in a high light tank at the start the will need a high rate of sugar production, supported by CO2 and water and that if CO2 is not enough, sugar production will not be optimum for that level of light. Ok I understand that and it is totally logical.
So the question is the following.
Say you have a tank running for 5 month and light is "strong" like 80 micro mole and you decide to introduce new plants, like me having a pond with a lot emerge plants and say I want to creat a carpet of glosso or HC. That means for better result for the new plants, it will be better to reduce the light intensity for at least 3 weeks for better adaptation ?
I know that that is not the only thing that will improve adaptation and result there is also flow CO2 and planting in very small batches.
But reducing light intensity when introducing emerge plants to a mature tank is an important key for success ??
If I am asking that its because I have never seen this advice in the forum and I think it s a really important point to know

Thanks for your time and sorry for the hijack :)

Cheers
 
zanguli-ya-zamba said:
But reducing light intensity when introducing emerge plants to a mature tank is an important key for success ??
Click to expand...
Hi Zanguli,
Yes absolutely, this is one of the most important keys and it explains why so many hobbyists have problems at tank startup. They don't realize that the differences between the physical properties of emmersed leaves and submerged leaves mean that newly flooded plants have an extra obstacle to overcome ad are less efficient at gathering nutrients and especially gathering CO2. Emmersed leaves are therefore more prone to CO2 starvation. So it follows that since those leaves will uptake less CO2, compared to a submersed leaf at that same location, the lighting should be reduced to compensate for the loss of CO2 uptake efficiency.

More info on the physiological differences between emmersed and submersed leaves:
Diatom dilemma... | UK Aquatic Plant Society
Cause of death? | UK Aquatic Plant Society

Cheers,
 
As a follow on question to your intensity points ceg4048.... In the absence of being able to reduce lighting intensity directly at the lights themselves (T5 bulbs in fixed height hood etc) is the use of floating plants a workable substitute?
 
Also, don't rule out other methods such as placing objects to block the light, such as darkened acrylic or even cheese cloth. These can be just temporary until the plants are strong enough to deal with higher lighting intensities.

Cheers,
 
bits ive ordered should arrive early next week . ive got a 1200lph powerhead (adjustable flow) , a tmc aquagro 1500 co2 reactor , 5 metres of 12/16mm clear hose , 1 metre of 12mm clear acrylic tube ( spraybar) and 2 12mm elbow connectors . in the meantime , reaflectors are removed , as previously mentioned , the disintigrating hygrophila has been removed and a large waterchange carried out . the melted hygrophila will be replaced with something else once i get flow/co2 sorted and a healthy balance restored in the tank .
 
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