struggling with Staurogyne repens

[danmil3s]

didn't want to count my chickens, but the tiny bits that were left seem to be showing singes of growth. so big thanks again to Clive . i think changing the co2 timings helped. not sure i achieved much changing the spray bar angle but i guess every little helps. shame there is only about 5 plants left. still if it starts to grow guess it will soon fill in. i have changed the bulbs but that was more to do with the colour than growth rate. i have upped the co2 to compensate. never liked the 6500k since the day i put them in all 8000k now. so thanks again Clive

 

[ceg4048]

Yes, as long as there is growth then it will just be a matter of time (although this isn't the fastest of growers).

I have to say that my old bulb does affect the growth of the staurogynes. I was growing them by the bucket and they were covering the foreground nicely. I've since then move to a new place but the tank was setup to be the same as before (positioning of the flow and the CO2 intake etc) and yet the plant wouldn't grow. It just gets leggier.

Hi Dan, I'm pretty certain this is an optical illusion. Legginess really has not much to do with light and is all about gas exchange which is affected by flow/CO2. The fact that you dismantled the tank and set it up again means that a lot of things would have changed, even if you reconstructed the setup as before. They only would have needed to change slightly. One thing you can do is to now change the lights back again if you still have them to see if it prompts leggy growth again. When you draw a conclusion about cause and effect then that effect must be repeatable, otherwise it has to be considered as coincidence or it must be that there is a very narrow band of conditions where the cause is validated. There is really no physiological correlation between legginess and the the light characteristics of aged bulbs.

Cheers,

 

[daniel19831123]

Luckily my old light bulb is still here. I just remembered that i've dosed excel as well when I changed the light as my CO2 ran out. so maybe my CO2 was the problem, not the light! Now i've upped my CO2, I'll see if this growth continues and when it does, I'll change back to the old light and see if there is an effect. That should give some answers (even if it's only anecdotal!)

 

[ceg4048]

Yeah, no worries. Check this thread which has some results of the "old-bulb" test==> http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=8273.

Legginess is explained in the first page of this thread ==> http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=12101

The thing about our tests and data is that we have to have control. You must first be able to grow trouble free plants before you can test a theory of why plants have trouble. If you have no control then the results of your test are not valid because the fault that occurs could have been due to the factors you were not able to control. This is why there are so many myths and misconceptions. How many people have blamed nutrients in the water column for their algae problems? It's very easy to buy this theory because it seems plausible and rational. They have nutrients in the water at the same time that they have algae, so it seems natural to conclude that the nutrients are causing the algae.

We can show (and we have shown) that massive quantities of nutrients in the water can be present with zero algae. Once that is demonstrated then the theory of nutrients-causing-algae has to be either abandoned or modified until we can zoom in on the truth. We now know that algae are independent of nutrients.

When you do your old-bulb test, make sure that you have control of all the factors that affect plant growth so that you avoid coincidence and avoid misidentifying the cause.

Cheers,

 

[Iain Sutherland]

Hi Dan, I'm pretty certain this is an optical illusion. Legginess really has not much to do with light and is all about gas exchange which is affected by flow/CO2. There is really no physiological correlation between legginess and the the light characteristics of aged bulbs.

Cheers,

Hey clive, Really?? is this another aquatic plant rumour.. i was always lead to believe it was the plants 'reaching' for light???
set me straight please

thanks

*EDIT* sorry i didnt finish reading the thread before posting... rooky mistake !! Yet another totally clear explanation that makes perfect sense!! Really want the 'aquascaping book for english speakers' to be published already
thanks again.

 

[plantbrain]

Having grown more than perhaps any other hobbyists and sold several thousand dollar's worth, I might know this plant pretty well.

I add 2tsp pf KNO3(15ppm) 2-3 xa week, I feed the snot out of the Cards........
I add 1 tsp of KH2PO3 3x a week
50-80 mls of a CMS+ Fe DTPA solution mix, Fe is about .5-.8ppm per dose...3x a week
GH booster, about 4 tsp 2x a week.

CO2 is 60-70ppm.

Light is 40 umol to maybe 45umol, so it's a low light plant. I've set up 4 larger tanks with this plant, they have less light and a few have more, it's not picky about light.

ADA aqua soil in each case for sediment.

EI type dosing above.

I tend to do 70-80% water changes for my own tanks since the landscaping needs water and I do not like to waste it on plants outside with first getting good use inside.