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My 60p soft water

That fluffy algae going out. With the help of some manual maintenance ( wafting my hand round plus paper towel in the skimmer to remove spores.) did that a couple weeks ago and seems to have helped. For a while thought the tank would completely clear out in terms of the column, but it seems to have come back a bit.
Oh well plants seem happy enough.
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Tonina planting inspired by the one and only @Hufsa
Oh, and I actually haven’t done a water change since this whole bloom thing…. Those just seemed to make it worse last time!
 
Years ago, I've experienced a bloom in a new tank which lasted endlessly. It was NOT a bacterial bloom. Some sands may contain particles too small to settle (due to Brownian motion).
 
plantnoobdude said:
Oh, and I actually haven’t done a water change since this whole bloom thing…. Those just seemed to make it worse last time!
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_Maq_ said:
Years ago, I've experienced a bloom in a new tank which lasted endlessly. It was NOT a bacterial bloom. Some sands may contain particles too small to settle (due to Brownian motion)
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If the cloudiness is not of bacterial or other biological origin then a few water changes should solve it don’t you think? Every WC removes a fraction of the suspended particles until they are no longer visible (and the filter takes care of the rest). I think a persistent cloudiness is more likely biological. Unless there is catfish or the like continuously disturbing the substrate.
 
Laoshan said:
a few water changes should solve it don’t you think?
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Of course. It lasted two months because I didn't WC during cycling. Once I began WCs, I gradually diluted the bloom into invisible.
But, if I'm not mistaken, @plantnoobdude didn't change water since the bloom appeared.
 
_Maq_ said:
Of course. It lasted two months because I didn't WC during cycling. Once I began WCs, I gradually diluted the bloom into invisible.
But, if I'm not mistaken, @plantnoobdude didn't change water since the bloom appeared.
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Well, I think I did one water change in the early days of the bloom. But that seemed to accelerate the bloom greatly. So I have since stopped. But the bloom actually started to go out, but then came back again. Interesting stuff.
 
plantnoobdude said:
Well what do you know? They grow fine, just fine in sand… in fact the only plant that actually suffered from swapping to sand is ammannia pedicellata. That’s just being sulky right now. 🥲 rotala Mac, Pantanal, wallichii, cuphea all growing well/better..

Sand specimens were placed in slightly less favourable positions e.g. less light, flow.( Due to space reasons.) and aqua soil specimens were in the middle of the tank. (This may account for plant size difference). Also if I recall I may have used scraps from splitting and not full planlets to start of the ones in sand.

But what I want people to notice is the root health, the plants in sand maintained brightly coloured white and fleshy roots where as the aqua soils plants which had browning and melting in the roots.
The sand specimens grew almost as well as soil Id say. So, for anyone reading this, if you have an inert substrate eriocaulon quinqunagulare may still be an option!
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As long as they get their CO2 they'll grow. It's not like other hungrier erios which can melt rapidly if soil is deficient or poor in nutrients. I have had E. Quin under shadow for several months and it would still grow, albeit at a very slow pace.
Here are the ones I just removed from my smaller high tech tank 2-3 weeks ago grown under clean loaded soil. The root system is huge and they have just been in the tank for 3 months.

IMG_8674.jpg
 
Hanuman said:
erios which can melt rapidly if soil is deficient or poor in nutrients.
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I'm pretty sure that that widespread belief that Eriocaulons require rich substrate is wrong. They possess huge roots because they acquire CO2 through roots. Their natural habitats are in fact pretty poor in nutrients. Consequently, there's low microbial population around, low biological oxygen demand, and thus low CO2 concentration. That's why Eriocaulons exude sugars and oxygen through their roots, 'cultivate' microbes in their rhizosphere and take up CO2 generated. Microbes also help with nutrients acquisition.
Littorella is another species for which this behaviour has been described in literature. It also inhabits oligotrophic waters. I personally suspect that Blyxa might be another example.
erwin123 said:
A 50 micron polishing pad should be able to clear the water if it is sediment and not bacterial.
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Nope. There's a fraction which cannot be filtered. Much smaller than 50 microns.
 
_Maq_ said:
I'm pretty sure that that widespread belief that Eriocaulons require rich substrate is wrong. They possess huge roots because they acquire CO2 through roots. Their natural habitats are in fact pretty poor in nutrients. Consequently, there's low microbial population around, low biological oxygen demand, and thus low CO2 concentration.
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That is a very broad statement that is not a belief but a reality, which I, and many others, have experienced first hand. Not every Eriocaulon species lives in poor substrate habitats to start with.
I have grown a good half a dozen different eriocaulon species and some do require a rich substrate and are very finicky. To state one, E. ratnagiricum. This little fellow will tell you in a matter of days if the soil is empty to his liking and will melt in a matter of 2 or 3 days. Some E. cinerum sp. as well but to a lesser degree and can withstand better a less than ideal substrate and will start sending flowers stalks at a fast rate. I have been able to send plants which were in flowering state into vegetative state by merely incorporating an osmocote balls under them. E. Vietnam on the other hand, that's a survivor. I've had in a good two month in a bowl with only water and it refused to die.

Now I don't pretend to be a botanist or know all the biological intricacies about Eriocaulon, but experience surely is worth something?
 
JoshP12 said:
Can we alter root “stuff” (length, thickness, etc) by supplementing co2 in the water?

Anyone ever noticed?
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My experience is that it is largely dependent on soil cleanness. When I grow erios in a soil that that has sediment and dust (even if the soil is rich), root will tend to grow smaller and will be weaker and brown. On the contrary when the soil is clean, the root system will spread and roots will be thick and white as you can see in the picture above.
 
JoshP12 said:
Can we reduce root “stuff” (length, thickness, etc) by supplementing co2 in the water?
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Of that I'm not sure. But I've speculated that poor roots of tissue-culture plants might be the reason why they often struggle when planted into aquarium, especially when not injecting CO2.
My problem with Eriocaulons is that - compared to @Hanuman and others - not many species are readily (and for reasonable price) available in my region. My experience is limited, and not always successful. At this moment, my E. Goiás are doing well, while E. cinereum struggling. Both is acidic water, silica sand, lean dosing.
 
Hanuman said:
My experience is that it is largely dependent on soil cleanness. When I grow erios in a soil that that has sediment and dust (even if the soil is rich), root will tend to grow smaller and will be weaker and brown. On the contrary when the soil is clean, the root system will spread and roots will be thick and white as you can see in the picture above.
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Forgot to say that I had plenty of CO2 when growing these erios. For some of them, no CO2 injection means death.
 
Hi all,
Hanuman said:
biological intricacies about Eriocaulon
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I don't know about the seasonally inundated or terrestrial tropical species, but the temperate region aquatic Eriocaulon spp. are really strange.

As @_Maq_ says they belong to a group of (unrelated) plants, referred to as "Isoetids" (after one of their number, the pteridophyte Isoetes).

<"The isoetid environment: Biogeochemistry and threats">.
..... Isoetid species are small, slow-growing, evergreen water plants with thick, stiff leaves or stems that form basal rosettes and have a proportionally large below ground biomass. Isoetids often dominate carbonate poor (weakly buffered) and nutrient poor (oligotrophic) water and are characterized by a (very) slow growth rate. The special adaptations to oligotrophic conditions enable them to grow where other plants are unable to thrive. The high porosity of the plants as a whole and the permeability of the roots in combination with the very low permeability of the leaves enable the efficient use of carbon dioxide from the sediment and also the oxidation of the sediment. The oxidation of the sediments helps them to create and maintain oligotrophic conditions.
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These would look "Isoetid", big root, stiff leaves etc.

img_8674-jpg.197415

cheers Darrel
 
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_Maq_ said:
At this moment, my E. Goiás are doing well, while E. cinereum struggling. Both is acidic water, silica sand, lean dosing.
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I haven't grown E. Goias but E, cinerum I have. Many of these erio also need soft water with low KH and require high lighting. Some more so than others.
 
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