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HELP! Dry start failing badly

idris

idris

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3 Jan 2011
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Herts
(Appologies to anyone who's read this in my journal but in case it's tucked where most people won't see it ...)

A week and a half in to dry starting my tank it's all going badly wrong:

Amazon Swords - leaves turning yellow and black and developing holes.
5733271086_6f3cf73c4b_z.jpg

5733270334_c5f03d9ed3_z.jpg


Hair Grass - turning yellow.
5732725325_96f70e58b2_z.jpg


Crypts Wendtii - just don't look happy.
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I don't know if this is a an issue with water, light or nutrients.
I think the akadama was initially too wet, but I mopped up much of the water after a few days.
I had been misting the plants but was advised to stop.
No ferts in the substrate as such, but the misting was with NPK + trace solution. (Only a couple of doses so far.)
Lighting is 60W and about 60-70cm above the substrate. Photoperiod of 12hrs.
Cover glass over the tank is closed.
Humidity is currently at about 70%, but I've only started measuring that today and I know it's been higher for much of the last week.
Temperature's been consistently about 22c

Any suggestions urgently appreciated as the Swords are noticable worse even over night.
 
if they were grown submersed before, they may take some time to adapt to the emersed conditions.

I dry-started mine. HC and Eleocharis did great. Echinodorus tenellus did not. Same conditions for all. so it may depend on the species too.

btw, I think it's good to leave some opening in the cover to promote gas exchanges.
I found misting everyday is good. Otherwise, they will get burned but I'm using sun as light.

If it's not working why not submerge it?

hope this helps
 
Crypts and swords have different requirements from reading about, crypts like 100% humidity, the swords however are supposedy fine without taking any extra provisions for raising the humidity. I wouldn't get too disheartened, it "should" pull back around if you increase humidity.
 
The leaves aren't tending to curl, or at least not till they've gone yellow and black.
Add to that, the Swords have suffered worse than the Crypts. Surely if it was too dry, and the Crypts require more moisture, they would have failed before the Swords.

Not saying it's wrong (y'all know better than me!) but I can't follow the logic.

If the problem is low humidity, any suggestions how I can increase it? It's currently pretty stable at 70%. I've seen mention of putting a heater in, but a) there's not really room (without uprooting plants of undoing hardscaping) and b) as heaters need to be submerged I'll have to add water, and that goes against the advice for DSM.
The only thing I can think of is cutting the top off a coke bottle, filling that with water, putting the heater in that, and sitting it all in the tank (somehow).
 
Hi all,
I'm pretty sure it is a humidity issue. If you put a sealed top on the tank, the %RH will increase until it is 100% RH as water will carry on evaporating until the moisture level of atmosphere and water are at equilibrium. This would be my suggestion for starters, cut away all the dead leaves and then seal the lid, with cling film or a glass lid, and then leave it for a few days. If the plants leaves continue to yellow at 100% RH, you need to look for another reason.

cheers Darrel
 
Spraying with ferts sometimes burns the leaves.

I would do what was proposed, cover with cling film, open for 5 minutes daily so air circulates and leave the substrate moist. The crypts not sure, but the others should grow again.


.
 
bigmatt said:
I've probably asked this already (had a pint or two this afternoon...) but why not just flood it?
M
Click to expand...

2nd that...


Why dry start? I don't think attempting a dsm on a tank with such a variety of plants for you 1st dsm is a wise move..

Just my 2bucks :)
 
bigmatt said:
... why not just flood it?
Click to expand...
1 - it sounded simple.
2 - it sounded fool proof (based on Tom Barrs writings).
3 - because the tank is deep, and I'm hoping to get away with a low tech, low maintainence, non CO2 set up, and because I wanted to use carpet plants (the hair grass) it sounded like the bet way to a) increase the biomes at the start and b) get the carpet grown in quicker.
4 - see points 1 & 2.

Why not flood it now?
Since the tank is best part of 2 weeks along, presumably some of any emersed/submersed "conversion" will be at least part way along, i would have thought the plants would just have to go through the reverse process and it would effectively be starting from scratch with weakened plants.

I could well be wrong, except on points 1 & 2.
 
Hi all,
a low tech, low maintainence, non CO2 set up, and because I wanted to use carpet plants (the hair grass) it sounded like the bet way to a) increase the biomass at the start and b) get the carpet grown in quicker.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that a dry start will offer any advantage, I think whatever you do you will get die off of the Eleocharis when it is submerged.

In some ways the success of high light and CO2, EI fertiliser addition route is that the plants don't "realise" that they are under-water. In the case of the dry start followed by high tech. it gives you a large biomass of rapidly growing plant when you add the water. Once the water is added the conditions become very suitable for any photosynthetic aquatic organism, including the various algae. By having a dry start the algae don't have a period of high light, high nutrients, high CO2 and low plant biomass that they can exploit due to their rapid growth rates.

If we just look at the "Green Algae" (Chlorophyta) they have exactly the same photosynthetic pathways and nutrient requirement as all the higher plants. But because they are exclusively aquatic organisms, that don't need to apportion nutrients to growing structural support tissue or on mechanisms for preserving water, they can "concentrate" solely on producing more photosynthetic tissue.

cheers Darrel
 
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