Good EI discussion (split from Paul's 200L journal)

[plantbrain]

The goldy toe came out and posed and did not run this time.

Time to Mow the lawn.

I switched out the P stellataus for the curly Ech vevesius and more Blyxa, opens the tank up more and allows me to see the cards better, better current also and no trimming much.

This tank has more biomass than I think, evident when I trim
Still, enough of looking at words, pictures help too.

I like the jigsaw puzzle comment.
EI is suppose to be a simple concept and it is.
It just rules out nutrients so you can focus where your gardening, plant growing skills are/may be weaker, namely light/CO2/scaping.

So you can improve your horticultural ability much more when nutrients are no longer factor.
Some folks limit PO4 and have "less algae" with less nutrients. So they have better plant growth/results.
This is indirectly affecting CO2 uptake.

They could do better if they chose to work more on CO2 and then not need to limit or dose carefully etc.
This way they are not limiting anything, other than perhaps light.
So you have better growth, higher rates of growth, larger healthier plants etc.

This hobby is about growing plants and the gardening.
Algae is a secondary pest that results from poor growth of plants.

Regards,
Tom Barr






Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[plantbrain]

Here is a simple question.... If you could answer this in non science speak, then we all might understand whats going on.

If you have perfect Co2, 10x tern over, a rich substrate, good light and ideal ranges of nutrients....
Why, if you remove 30% of your plants would that give you algae?

If ever I do any plant maintenance, I always drop my dosing down, never the light or Co2. I rarely have any problems.

In simplest terms, plants define the system, not nutrients.
An article in support of this:
http://fishweb.ifas.ufl.edu/Faculty%20P ... 2004LR.pdf

Its interesting that you say, adding Co2 to a tank can give you algae blooms. That's going to worry the nube. They need to know that adding Co2 to a previously established aquarium will increase the demand of the plants.

Compared to what? Do you see nearly as many issues with algae in the ***well set up*** non CO2 planted tanks? I don't.
Many put a lot of effort into a CO2 enriched system, they cannot get a handle on the algae.

More light, more CO2 => faster disaster typically.
Everything is going faster. Measuring CO2 can be a bear.
CO2 is not much of an issue with non CO2.

Some would argue non CO2 is better for fish as well.
Hard to gas or kill fish with CO2 if it's not used, no?

I think, what is not being spoken about clearly enough is that its not so much the fertiliser levels, ie being high and having enough for the plants - I get that. What isnt hammered to people doing EI is what is being discussed in this thread. Again, I come back to balance. I always try and describe how a person should look at their plants and what kind of energy they might need. An all crypt and anubias tank does not need much energy. Too much energy, i.e light, then no matter what ferts and Co2 you put in, those plants just wont and cant use it up. You then have an excess, i.e the light. You get algae, then they feed of the excess nutrients.

Again, plants, not nutrients define the system.
It's not about excess nutrients or availability of the nutrients to algae, they have MORE than enough nutrients in every case. We find algae blooms in very low nutrient tanks and in lakes, streams etc as well. Not much relationship is found between algae and nutrients in other words.

You seem to imply there is, but there's no such evidence in natural systems or aquariums if you look at the big picture.
Plenty of folks have lot sof nutrients and no algae, so it cannot be about excess nutrients, nothing to do with that.

Good healthy plants?
Sure seems that way.
What about them?
Not sure.

I'm not going to make something up if I do not know.
I can make hypothesis, test them etc.......if possible etc.
About all I can do If you have a solution or a hypothesis etc, feel free of propose it.

Then we have something to test.

If stressed plants are suddenly limited by CO2, maybe algae spores can sense that.
We can move CO2 around and note poor plant growth and algae blooms.
Measuring CO2 really well and with calibrated methods is tricky though.

What needs to be spoken about is light balance, in fact, just balance. Getting the ratio of plant species-light-co2-ferts. Thats the balance people need to grasp. And this will be individual. A tank with some fast growing plants and some slow growing plants is a nice balance.

But......I have slow growing plants, and dose the same ferts, no issues, not algae etc.
I also can add lots of light, again, little issue with these species, and I can also do the higher light stems with low light without issues, all awhile maintaining independence with nutrients. They can be non limiting, thus in excess for each case.

Providing non limiting Nutrients is among the easiest things we can do in a test.
So that is independent. Light we can also measure fairly well comparatively.

This leaves mostly CO2.
CO2 is the most dynamic and fastest changing parameter, seconds, minutes, hours ranges.
Nutrients? Days, hours, weeks.
Light? Months, years etc.

I agree fertilisers limit plant growth and that in tern can cause algae. But I still maintain, that it is more about trying to teach people about balance and not about throwing tones of fertilisers at plants. There is a bigger picture that is getting glossed over in written articles. Its fine on a forum, but it can get missed.
We need to spell it out, tell it like it is, not with complicated language and pomposity.
Cheers.

I agree with this last bit here certainly.
Ferts can be honed and tweaked, like light and like CO2, they all have the similar weight, perhaps less so than CO2, since CO2 is so toxic comparatively, like a FIFA ref in a pub in UK about now.

In articles, they should try and suggest the slow methodical reduction from an upper known level, and then good observations. Unfortunately, many focus too strongly on nutrients/management, and not enough on the bigger picture, CO2, light and............the nutrients.

I mention these other two elements much more than I do anything to do with ferts. Have mostly for years, but folks just hear the EI part, not the light/CO2. Since folks cannot get everything all at once most times, it's good to master one thing at a time and make sure it is independent, then take the next step. After 1-2 weeks dosing is down, light hopefully was addressed prior, then it's CO2, good general aquarium care etc.

I do not think our views ans goals are that far off here, other than you seem to think that excess nutrients are a risk in some way, encourage algae etc in and of themselves. You cannot argue with results from a test that test that hypothesis however. It is what it is.

In the null is rejected, then we must accept the alternative hypothesis Ha: Something other than nutrients is causing algae.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[GreenNeedle]

I was just trying to clear the other subjects out really. They aren't anything to do with EI in the main. Like Tom says EI is a method that makes nutrients easy, especially for those who don't want to test, or calculate etc. I see what you say about laziness being forgetting to fertilise etc. In that scenario I would suggest they went the wrong route in the first place and a hi tec aquarium is not for them.

I would look at it the other way. EI is a better method than any for those who want to think about 1 thing less. Why? Because it takes out any need to test, worry or even think about the nutrient. You look at a recipe, mix it, read your tank size and then dose accordingly. You can dose both macro and micro daily, on alternate days, once a week, it is up to the user. If dosing daily is far too much work for someone they can just add up (from the already calculated guidelines) 3xmacro, 3xmicro then measure them out and dose. Leave the tank alone for a week and then do the same again in a week's time. Now that's what I call lazy Thats not to say its a method for the lazy. Just that it means you haven't got to think about it. Just follow the instructions and dose it.

You could say 'but I could dose any method once a week and walk away, What makes EI more suitable?' This is pretty easy to answer. All the other methods involve lean dosing, limiting or testing. Testing is effort, limiting can cause problems, lean dosing can be managed in the same way as EI but not something I would suggest unless people already know how to put the jigsaw together.

This I can always prove

Not much in science can ever really be proven at least not 100%. This is what the problem was with phosphate/excess nutrients. It was 'proven' that excess nutrient mainly P was the cause of algae. Virtually the whole of the hobby could reason with the argument however it falls down when just 1 person who doesn't have the problem even when they put in 10x more than the minimal amount that was suggested was a max.

At that stage the majority have to either eliminate that thinking and look elsewhere for the reason or just maybe the 1 person may be doing something else that counteracted the P.

What I am saying here is yes someone can prove that their own tank/pond that has lime in it has BBA but they can't really prove that it is the lime causing it. Someone else's will show otherwise and they then can both happily proceed to look at the next possible cause.

They are until you forgot fertilizing and they are decaying, what about than? I've seen this kind of failure way too many times.

This is to do with the person rather than EI. This statement is true of all methods. You use a method and it may give superb results. You miss something out and it will result in failure 99% of the time. That is your laziness argument rather than something to do with EI.

I haven't tried it but I would suggest that a hi tec, high light setup using EI would work without a filter. Circulation would still be needed. It would however mean not forgetting to fertilise just as much as not forgetting anything else like checking CO2, water changes etc. That is to do with the person rather than the method. The filter is more a 'safety net' in a lot of cases and also lets people get their source of flow/circulation out of the tank. We also use the filter to try and remove some organic N (ammonia etc) whilst replacing it with inorganic N (via KNO3) however that doesn't mean we need to. Just at the speed a hitec setup works it is reassuring to have that 'safety net' in place.

The same thing I can say about Italian cars, there are Italian cars that are working for years with minor maintenance or no maintenance at all, are they all like this? For sure no and for sure the percent of "ideal Italian cars" is around 0.000001%

I think you're glooking at this the wrong way around. If we use your comparison in the same way as we do with our hobby we should be saying 'If 99.99999% italian cars are not 'ideal' does that mean none are. This is like above. 1 person uses P no problems so its not the P etc. lol You can't suggest that because 100 people use EI and have problems that EI is the problem because the 1 person who uses it and doesn't have problems disproves the theory. It is easy to disprove a theory but almost impossible to prove it 100%. Maybe in a 1000 years time we will have proven everything and then..............science will be replaced by fact.

That's not laziness that's rush ... laziness comes when you have a good high tech aquarium that works fine, you've taken the final picture and after that you forgot about fertilizing and maintenance.

We all have a different defination of lazy. I would argue that not doing much is lazy, someone else would argue that its not doing anything and someone else could argue it is more than me etc... If we want to get to the stage of lazy means not doing anything then that person should not be using EI nor any other fertilisation method and I would never suggest lazy and hi tec are suitable partners . Again its the person not the method at fault. All methods are only as good as the administrator.

The fishing example is good. Most people who challenge the concept of EI are obsessed by the kids and forget the rest only to come back and find their kit gone or smashed or sunken on the river/lake bed. Those of us who don't challenge the concept are happy to ask the kids if they could be a tiny bit quieter and concentrate on the other elements of the day.

So I was answering your questions and other's comments. EI is quite a simple thing. Light is quite a simple thing, CO2 is quite a simple thing. Sensible light + good circulation + Good CO2 administration is all that an EI user needs to think about because they don't need to think about nutrients. It doesn't need thinking about just administering Light can be kept very simple. Don't use too much and never worry about it again. CO2 is a simple thing but hard to maintain.

Many variables that make a once perfect CO2 setup suddenly not work. Simple things like increased uptake, plant mass increasing, circulation changes, failure to maintain the CO2 equipment (diffusers reactors etc) all these can make that once perfect system struggle or fail. The nutrients though? EI is already making sure that there is enough for increases in uptake.

If someone wants a planted tank but doesn't want to do much work they shouldn't be using EI nor any other method nor CO2 etc. They should be using a non CO2 method. EI just means that for those who are prepared to do a bit of work then they can concentrate their efforts on keeping the CO2 right, keeping the maintenance up, pruning etc

Hi tec CO2 enriched aquariums are not compatible with laziness really but like I said that depends how little you want to call lazy

At the end of the day there are many systems and many believers of each system. EI users tend to be a more realxed 'breed' and if someone wants to say EI is **** they tend to try and explain why it isn't. If they don't want to believe or listen etc. Fair enough it is their choice but of all the methods out there it is the least effort. There are other methods which involve testing continually and adjusting the nutrients to suit etc. If you enjoy testing and dabbling and are happy to spend that time then go for it. If that method works then great. It doesn't mean that EI is wrong though. It just means that you prefer one method to another.

We aren't trying to protect a certain 'beloved' method here. We aren't trying to belittle anyone who doesn't agree. We are just trying to clear up the myths and false correlations that make so many planted tanks fail.

AC

 

[plantbrain]

I talked to our local group today and it struck me as rather simple: If you make each parameter of the big 3,: light, CO2 and nutrient independent.....then you have mastery of all the main horticultural growing methods.

You can grow things with only the metabolism of the plants as the limitation.
In otherwords, you get max yield.

This is not the goal for most however, they want good growth, but be able to manage it to suit their routine.
So if we chose the most stable parameter we have available: light, then this is easy to adjust.

CO2 becomes easier, nutrients as well.

We also get much high light use efficiency and larger plants with good nutrients/CO2 vs a limited nutrient method.
If you leave for a few days, a week etc, raise the lights up 15cm, demand goes down, plants still grows etc.
Plants still grow likewise if you limit ferts also...........but you have choices of how to do it, and less issues with CO2/nutrients if you chose say..light, not PO4.

Limiting PO4, limiting CO2 or limiting light..........they all work, but some are a lot easier to maintain and deal with, namely light, since everything downstream is easier. PO4? This is harder to keep down than somehing as stable as light.

I also use less energy and spend less $ if I use less light. PO4? I waste light.
Folks say EI is wasteful, but so is wasting all that light, you cannot suggest one part of the method is less wasteful and then not address light or CO2 also :idea:

There's going to be some excess nutrients, or CO2 or light in all of this somewhere for decent growth and independence. To test something well, you need to ensure there's independence of the other factors before you can test the dependent factor(say like PO4 limitation, CO2 must be non limiting at 0.05ppm PO4, all the way up to say 5.0 ppm PO4). Light can be set at say 50micromol at the sediment etc, as a standard.

Unless you can verify the CO2 is non limiting for all cases, then you cannot make a conclusion fairly, there's confounding influence of the CO2. EI will simply expose if you have poor control over CO2 when nutrients are independent, and/or have too much to manage.

Some folks would rather go back to limiting nutrients than face CO2 head on.
But if you want to gain mastery of each of the big 3, this is the way to do it.
Then testing nutrients is not that interesting any more.

You worry about limiting light and seeing how low you can go with light instead.
Some suggest EI fails because they failed so there's a small group that seems to fail often, so there's more to this............I agree there is more to this small group of folks...........namely confounding issues with their use of CO2, lack of measuring with respect to light.

If you suggest there is more to it, you need to offer a reasonable hypothesis that explains the observations for the large % of EI users and the small group that fails with it..........as I have with CO2/light co limitation switching from CO2 to PO4.

Put forth a hypothesis that explains both observations. I have. It's testable, makes good logical sense, I can demonstrate both cases. So there is "more to it", it's indirect and involves light ad CO2 as well.

It's more simple than many seem to think.
It is how plants grow" allocating resources to light, CO2 and nutrients.

We showed this back in the mid 1990's.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the folks here that's using EI for some time. Limiting nutrients under high light/co2 levels this can lead to plants decay 'cause of the fast nutrients uptake. For low tech setups I can go only to overstock, overfeed and dose trace now and than to maintain the tank at an acceptable level. I had trouble when I switched to a high tech setup last year due to my stubbornness to treat the setup as low tech thinking that I only need to overstock the tank more, boy I was wrong. I measured the nutrient uptake and it was 0.5 ppm trace a day, 5 ppm N/day, and 0.2 ppm P/day (with Echinodorus tenellus I had levels of 0.5 P/day), could overstocking / overfeeding and dosing only trace could address this nutrient uptake? No.

Now I use EI, and big water changes frequently and I'm very satisfied. I don't care about wasting nutrients due to large water changes 'cause I'm not dosing EI in hydroponic tanks, just a 100l tank .

Cheers,
Mike

 

[George Farmer]

@ Tom and/or Clive

What's the dosing recommendation for a tank where CO2 is 'limited'?

Say I want around 15ppm CO2 instead of 30ppm, because I'm keeping ultra-CO2 sensitive fish, even with high O2.

 

[ceg4048]

Hi George,
Tom might have a different angle on this question, but I concentrate on keeping things simple. If the tank is truly CO2 limited, and if the lighting is indeed not excessive.....I would still start the tank out on the baseline values.

It's very easy for people to say "I have X ppm of CO2" but in fact we really don't have a clue. It's hard enough figuring things out when we think we have 30ppm CO2. I don't think it would be productive to suggest a different set of dosing values for tanks having "X" ppm of CO2. In fact, just because our dropchecker is green, and if we supposedly have 30ppm, we have seen in so many cases that flow/distribution as well as lighting excesses, as Tom points out, can cause issues. The variety and number of permutations are bewildering. Toms baseline number are derived for a tank, that we can consider, had infinite lighting and infinite CO2, yet anybody can use these baseline numbers for an enriched tank, so he didn't have to arrange a new set of numbers for folks with less than infinite light/CO2. The baseline numbers can work for everybody. For tanks with zero CO2 enrichment, of course, there is a unique set of numbers, and even so, we can deviate from those baseline numbers as well. But there is no need for a 50% nominal CO2 or a 25% nominal CO2 tank, in the same way that there is no need for a unique set of dosing numbers for X WPG. The baseline numbers are offered under the logical premise that nutrients and algae are independent in a planted tank and that these dosing numbers are for health optimization.

As we've tried to point out, EI is an easy, interactive process. It is not a rigid ball & chain. You can deviate from the numbers to suit your requirements. So whatever CO2 concentration value you have, I'd always suggest to start with the baseline dosing values and to make adjustments from there.

So if you have lower light and lower CO2, how to make the adjustments from baseline? Simply reduce the dosing by an arbitrary percentage and assess the results after a few weeks. Then make further incremental reductions as appropriate.

Cheers,

 

[GreenNeedle]

When I was running CO2 at '15ppm' (of course I was only going by 2 drop checkers in the same tank with 2dKH in them) I found JamesC's PMDD+P worked pretty well if that is any help

AC

 

[George Farmer]

Thanks, Clive and Andy.

The reason I ask is for folk that aren't keen on maintaining 'high' CO2 levels, but still want relatively fast growth compared with non-CO2.

Does anyone re-call Amano's early tanks (Nature Aquarium Book 1) with claimed 15-20ppm CO2 and lots of lighting i.e. 4 x 20w T8 over 54 litres?! And lean dosing... :?

 

[Anonymous]

lots of lighting i.e. 4 x 20w T8 over 54 litres?! ...

If I'm not entirely wrong he used a suspended lamp and this means a low light setup.

 

[ceg4048]

Thanks, Clive and Andy.

The reason I ask is for folk that aren't keen on maintaining 'high' CO2 levels, but still want relatively fast growth compared with non-CO2.

Yes, I get where you're coming from mate. EI has become more or less ubiquitous so we sometimes lose historical perspective. I'll reiterate here that 15-20 years ago there was tremendous consternation about algae due to nutrients. This more or less coincided with the advent of high energy lighting such as T5. There were competing philosophies about dosing and the effects of nutrients in general. People were practically hysterical about avoiding water column dosing because of algae. No one thought about the fact that high energy spectral input was the main culprit. It was always about nutrients in the water causing algae.

Think about one of the competing dosing scheme PPS (or PPS-Pro) that grew out of this hysteria. Think about it's founding philosophy - that water column nutrients cause algae, that algae compete with plants for water column nutrients and that therefore one should only dose what is necessary for plants and to eliminate any excess. How is this to be accomplished? By taking repetitive test kit readings and in order to ensure that the particular nutrient never exceeds X ppm. PPS is the complete antithesis of EI because the founding philosophies are diametrically opposed.

So from EI's point of view, it doesn't matter what the CO2 injection level is. You start with the baseline dosing numbers without fear of causing algae due to excess nutrients in the water column. Now, naturally, having more nutrients induces faster growth, and so if you have a reduced CO2 tank for the express purpose of lowering the stress and growth rates, then it absolutely makes sense to also lower the nutrient levels. This is logical, but it's important to remember that the nutrients are being lowered in order to lower the growth rate, not because you fear that extra nutrients in the reduced CO2 tank will trigger algal blooms. No matter what CO2 scheme or nutrient scheme your tank has, the blooms would be triggered by other factors (like too much light), not because you have more nutrients than you need. People still struggle mightily to understand this fundamental principle, and I think that's one of the reasons why those who have not tried EI fear it so much.

So when one uninformed person talks to another uninformed person about EI, the conversation always sounds something like; "Throw in tons of excess nutrients, tons of CO2 and tons of water changes - very complicated and too much trouble". That conversation almost never sounds like; "Well if you have excess lighting you'll need to support it with the appropriate levels of nutrients/CO2/flow/maintenance, here's a simple formula to ensure that at least the nutrient part of the equation is addressed..."

So what happens? People graduate from the Harry Potter College of Super Massive Gamma-Ray Lighting, don't add enough of anything else and then expect that their plants automatically will do well. Then they're afraid that all those nutrients in the water will make their problems worse.

Does anyone re-call Amano's early tanks (Nature Aquarium Book 1) with claimed 15-20ppm CO2 and lots of lighting i.e. 4 x 20w T8 over 54 litres?! And lean dosing... :?

As clonitza mentions, it might be suspension lighting which would lower the PAR. But he might also have been using massive substrate dosing as well.

Cheers,

 

[plantbrain]

@ Tom and/or Clive

What's the dosing recommendation for a tank where CO2 is 'limited'?

Say I want around 15ppm CO2 instead of 30ppm, because I'm keeping ultra-CO2 sensitive fish, even with high O2.

I question the accuracy of the CO2 measurement in ADA's tap water and show room tanks.
I know a bit too much about the effects of other buffering systems on CO2.

I do know that the tap water has about 0.5ppm of PO4, they do large frequent water changes. the PO4 throws off the pH/KH determination, and the CO2 is not data logged over time of the day, so it might change and not be what is stated. We also have no idea what the PAR is. I over estimated the PAR from ADA lighting by 200%!! I twas not until I broke out the light meter and went testing several ADA tanks, and then I saw a very interesting relationship.......they are all the same PAR, regardless of the wpg.

So I still do not know what the PAR is for the tank you reference, and you do not really either.
But given the facts on other ADA tanks and systems, it's not too far fetched to suggest it might not be anywhere near what we might predict with wpg's.

Without some sort of standard for comparisons, such data is meaningless and suspect.
Nutrients are fairly easy, if you use a good light meter and a light curve vs distance, then you have light.
CO2 is more tricky.

So there may not be any conflict at all here. :idea:
There's just no complete answer in the data provided.

This is why researchers use calibration standards and knowns, controls etc.
It verifies the data.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[plantbrain]

Thanks, Clive and Andy.

The reason I ask is for folk that aren't keen on maintaining 'high' CO2 levels, but still want relatively fast growth compared with non-CO2.

I think this gets at a key pragmatism that aquarist often desire goal wise.

Planted hobbyists want the nice growth rates, but not weedy hard to tend growth, too fast, too much etc.
They also do not want super slow growth, a bit too much patience required there.

We are going to waste "something", light, CO2 and nutrients.......no way around this for good horticulture. There's going to be some excess.

So what cost the $$$ out of the 3?
Light mostly, CO2 is cheap, we waste 90% of all the CO2 we add, if not more.......it's degassed.
Nutrients are also cheap, so is tap water.

So light is is also the most stable parameter, so that should be the main thing to adjust the rates of growth.
Good CO2/nutrients at a non limiting level= max light use efficacy.

So we get the most out of the least amount of light and the bets management/ease of use for dosing CO2/ferts.
Most ADA tanks are set up this way. The difference is that ADA went the way of the sediment for non limiting ferts(sediment holds most of the ferts, where as EI doses to the water column). I did as well, but got curious as to the claims about water column and ppm's with algae.
PMDD came along about then for me as well.
I could test the water column, could not the sediment.
So it(water column) offered a better test model.
Still, I also test both EI and ADA As together with the same results, no surprise.

Ole, Troels, Claus all concluded the best management for most horticultural goals was low light, CO2 enrichment and non limiting ferts. ADA does indirectly as well. What is not done well is the measure of CO2 and a calibration reference for it that's accurate and can data log. This is the Achilles heel data wise. I have no simple solution for hobbyists here other than experience and slow methodical tweaking Wish I could offer something better that's cheap etc.

I find that management is MUCH easier with low light and good CO2/nutrients are far more forgiving with low light.
Most do and are amazed with low light still giving them very good growth/colors.

Again, see how this gets away from EI or algae etc, and back to plant growth and CO2/light?
These tend to be far more interesting and dynamic than nutrients, which tend to be almost boring once you understand them more. Ole and I spoke about this when he was over here. I do not think we disagree about any of this. It all the hobbyists!!!

We even agreed on that

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Anonymous]

Again, see how this gets away from EI or algae etc, and back to plant growth and CO2/light?
These tend to be far more interesting and dynamic than nutrients, which tend to be almost boring once you understand them more. Ole and I spoke about this when he was over here. I do not think we disagree about any of this. It all the hobbyists!!!

That's good because I tend to get annoyed by the same discussions over and over again about algae and dosing.

How about this subjects:

- induce plant flowering both submersed and emersed.
- how can you make your stern plants to grow compact between the nodes.
- how much light do you need so that your carpet plants spreads near the soil rather than going up to the surface or vice-verse, does EI matter?
- how can you make your stern plants like rotala or ludwigia grow vertical rather than horizontal? What triggers them to grow vertical? What triggers them to grow horizontal?
- how can you make some plants to grow side shots if they doesn't do this usually? I'm regarding Proserpinaca palustris in particular.

 

[GreenNeedle]

You'll hate me but CO2 again is the answer to most of your questions

Many plants shoot up because they need more than CO2 than is available at the substrate level. The CO2 concentration will be higher further up the water column by it's very nature of gas rising

I think Tom would verify that when tested the CO2 ppm at substrate can be in the region of 8ppm even when it is 30ppm+ towards the water surface in a very well setup aquarium.

As to plant flowering it is pretty hard to make plants flower submersed. There are exceptions of course. On the other hand as long as the conditions are right it is pretty easy to get plants to flower emersed. You just leave them to reach out of the water and wait

The vertical stems vs horizontal stems is pretty much similar to a garden. If you let the plant grow it grows tall. If you prune it then it branches. regular pruning makes the plant thicken rather than stretching.

AC

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah I agree with you that there's no mystery regarding CO2 .. oh, I so don't like easy non-complicated things .. I'll just try to find another set of questions

Cheers,

 

[plantbrain]

That's good because I tend to get annoyed by the same discussions over and over again about algae and dosing.

Well, welcome to my world and preach to the choir

- induce plant flowering both submersed and emersed.

Many will not flower submersed.

- how can you make your stern plants to grow compact between the nodes.

High CO2, good O2, wide light dispersion.

Again, not much on EI here.........

- how much light do you need so that your carpet plants spreads near the soil rather than going up to the surface or vice-verse, does EI matter?

Not much(40micromols, maybe less) and not much at all.

- how can you make your stern plants like rotala or ludwigia grow vertical rather than horizontal? What triggers them to grow vertical? What triggers them to grow horizontal?

Not sure.
I've had some varieties of the same species do this in both EI and non EI tanks.
So it's not the nutrients. Does not seem to be the light either.

- how can you make some plants to grow side shots if they doesn't do this usually? I'm regarding Proserpinaca palustris in particular.

Mermaid weed is really easy to grow, that's why we call it a weed.
I got pics of acres of it.

Some places, as far as you can see.

Try emergent growth, it'll produce tons of seeds and is really easy to grow, you never find in deep water, maybe 1 ft or so deep, and typically the tops are 2-5cm max from the surface.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

There's a hour of my life I'm not getting back but well worth it I don't know how I keep missing these posts after spending most of my life on this board.

 

[AverageWhiteBloke]

My worry is that out of all the information in this topic which would probably answer 90% of the posts on the board if read thoroughly the only part that has stuck in my mind is..

People graduate from the Harry Potter College of Super Massive Gamma-Ray Lighting, don't add enough of anything else and then expect that their plants automatically will do well.

Probably the reason I left school with no more than a swimming certificate.