Glossostigma elatinoides - am I doing this right?

[Ullalaaqua]

Glossos is forming the carpet really slowly and growing vertically in stead of horizontally in some places. I’m just learning how to grow this plant so any tips are more than wellcome.

Here is some pictures and you can find the detailed info at the end.

TIA

Sorry for the reflections...

Tank: 22l
Filter: Dennerle Scapers Flow
Light: ONF flat nano (5 hours/day with 100%intesity)
Co2: 24/7 levels steady 20ppm
Ferts: None yet (tank is little over 40days old)
Substrate: Tropica Aquarium soil and soil powder
Water change: every 3rd day 70% waterchange
Products used: Scheachem Prime, probidio Bio digest
Lifestock now: 5 ramshorn snails, 2 Amano shrimp from my bigger tank.
Water parameters (don’t have TDS meter yet): kh 3, gh 4, ph 6,5, temperature +24 C ( haven’t tested phosphates or nitrates yet)
Plants: Glossostigma elatinoides
Eleocharis acicularis 'Mini'
Marsilea hirsuta
Hydrocotyle tripartita "Mini"
Bucephalandra Mini needle leaf
Bucephalandra ’Kedagang’
Riccardla sp. ’Chamedryfolla’
Bolbitis heteroclita ’difformis’
Juncus repens
Rotala wallichii
Rotala green
Rotala nanjenshan
Rotala vietnam
Ludwigia palustris




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[Dr Mike Oxgreen]

Nice looking tank - I love the wood!

Glosso needs decent light and very good CO₂ to make it grow compactly.

On the plus side, at least it’s growing and looking healthy, albeit not as tight to the substrate as you would like.

Your light strikes me as pretty good, although 5 hours is a very short period - you can probably start lengthening that gradually. I’d go to 6 hours and maybe add another hour each couple of weeks until you get to 8 or 9 hours. I notice that your Rotala wallichii is closed up in the picture - was the picture taken just after lights-on?

After that, I’d be looking at your CO₂ level and distribution next I think. Can you tweak that up a bit, perhaps to 25 or 30 ppm?

Equally important is flow, and it can be tricky to make sure the carpet plants are getting it. How is your filter flow being returned to the tank? Is it possible to fit a spray bar running across the back of the tank just below the water line, with the jets pointing at the front glass? This is the conventional arrangement and it really does work well - in my 25l tank I have a Twinstar M3 that produces a cloud of oxygen bubbles periodically, and I can see the bubbles being pushed down the front glass and then backwards over my hairgrass and HC Cuba carpet, thus visibly showing what the water flow is doing. (I remain unconvinced that the M3 does anything else of value, but this one side-effect is really handy!)

I notice that you’re not fertilising at the moment. The Glosso may well be getting what it needs from the substrate for the time being, but I think at 40 days your tank is probably ready for some water column ferts. Also I think you could start reducing the frequency of water changes now, which will conserve more of your added fertilisers. I think you can gradually reduce it towards 50% once a week.

But overall it’s looking good - I don’t see much algae!

 

[Ullalaaqua]

Nice looking tank - I love the wood!

Glosso needs decent light and very good CO₂ to make it grow compactly.

On the plus side, at least it’s growing and looking healthy, albeit not as tight to the substrate as you would like.

Your light strikes me as pretty good, although 5 hours is a very short period - you can probably start lengthening that gradually. I’d go to 6 hours and maybe add another hour each couple of weeks until you get to 8 or 9 hours. I notice that your Rotala wallichii is closed up in the picture - was the picture taken just after lights-on?

After that, I’d be looking at your CO₂ level and distribution next I think. Can you tweak that up a bit, perhaps to 25 or 30 ppm?

Equally important is flow, and it can be tricky to make sure the carpet plants are getting it. How is your filter flow being returned to the tank? Is it possible to fit a spray bar running across the back of the tank just below the water line, with the jets pointing at the front glass? This is the conventional arrangement and it really does work well - in my 25l tank I have a Twinstar M3 that produces a cloud of oxygen bubbles periodically, and I can see the bubbles being pushed down the front glass and then backwards over my hairgrass and HC Cuba carpet, thus visibly showing what the water flow is doing. (I remain unconvinced that the M3 does anything else of value, but this one side-effect is really handy!)

I notice that you’re not fertilising at the moment. The Glosso may well be getting what it needs from the substrate for the time being, but I think at 40 days your tank is probably ready for some water column ferts. Also I think you could start reducing the frequency of water changes now, which will conserve more of your added fertilisers. I think you can gradually reduce it towards 50% once a week.

But overall it’s looking good - I don’t see much algae!

Hei and thank you so much for the detailed answer! The flow in the water is quite good. It pushes the CO2 bubbles down and carries them through the tank. I took this photo after the lights went off so the rotalas are ”sleeping” they open up normally by day. The full frotal picture is a bit older than the other ones too.

I’ve been very careful on liquid ferts for now because with my previous tank I started fertilizing too early and ended up with an algae problem in my hands. But I’ll start slowly with that too now. Once I get proper vi2 regulator with sodastream adapter I’ll adjust the levels a bit higher. I’m getting Crystal shrimps there so I have to be extra careful with it so I don’t accidentally gas them to death.

I’ve been trying to bury the glossos deeper, but ended up messing things up more. So I desided to just cut the high tips and let it grow runners that will hopefully be deeper in the soil. Right now it looks so messy. I used hours to plant it one by one as deep and close together as possible but really ruined my work by trying to bury the high tips. Maybe it’ll start growing beautifully in awhile.

Thank you so much for your help! I really appreciate it


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