Monterrey Salad

Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
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Hello friends!
I am here to share my current project, hope to receive your advice and also to contribute what i have learned from this hobby.

I used a tank of 200L (50x80x50 cms), i have always used black soil as a nutrient substrate, sealed with silica and for this project was not the exception hahaha.

I have a Canister filter (1500 L / H)
I add 2 bubbles per second (24H)
And my lamp is home-made with 12 LED bulbs of 10W each.

I make 1 weekly change of water (80%), i use tap water and in each change add:
KNO3 (10 grams = 40 ppm)
KH 2 PO 4 (2 grams = 7.5 ppm)
And consequently 25ppm of Potassium
I also add Seachem Flourish (the dose recommended by the manufacturer)
Tap Water Values:
PH = 7.9
GH = 14
KH = 14

I used plants from a previous project that is why they look bad, the species I added are:
- Rotala Sunset
- Rotala Bonsai
- Rotala Macrandra
- Rotala Blood Red
- Rotala Bangladesh
- Rotala Vietnam
- Rotala Walichi
- Didiplis Diandra
- Alternanthera Variegated
- Pogostemon Erectus
- Hemianthus Glomeratus
- Hyptis Lorentziana
- Ludwigia Mini Super Red
- Ludwigia Inclinata Red
- Ludwigia Brevipes
- Ludwigia Glandulosa
- Staurogyne Repens
- Nesaea Pedicellata Golden
- Cryptocorine Parva
- Elatine hydropiper

This is a picture of the first day:

And here an image 20 days later:

Some details of plants:


Some plants are showing... deficiencies??
For example the nesaea golden have wrinkled and deformed leaves, and the Staurogyne stunted growth.
I will take some more detailed photos haha.


Thank you for reading!
 
Last edited:
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Pikez

Rotala Killer!
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Some questions:
  • What do you mean by 'black soil'? Regular garden soil?
  • Is there some minor stunting with the wallichii?
  • Your Ammannia pedicellata (Nesaea Golden) looks normal. I mean just like mine. :)
  • Is this your first time growing Staurogyne repens in this tank? I have never seen it do that.
 
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Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
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Some questions:
  • What do you mean by 'black soil'? Regular garden soil? (Yes, regular garden soil hahaha)
  • Is there some minor stunting with the wallichii? Sometimes show this behavior, especially after cutting some stems, the shoots get stunted.
  • Your Ammannia pedicellata (Nesaea Golden) looks normal. I mean just like mine. :) hahaha, leaves grow deformed, slow growth and pinholes on old leaves ??
  • Is this your first time growing Staurogyne repens in this tank? I have never seen it do that. Since my first project I have tried to grow about 4 times and always ends up looking bad hahaha.
 

Jaye

Junior Poster
Jun 17, 2016
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IME Stauro likes potassium. Lots and lots of it. I dose 12g 3x/week in my 125 gallon tank, which has a stauro "lawn." I've never seen it do that, though.
 
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Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
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IME Stauro likes potassium. Lots and lots of it. I dose 12g 3x/week in my 125 gallon tank, which has a stauro "lawn." I've never seen it do that, though.
interesting! Do you have the values of kh, gh and ph of the water in your tank?
 

Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
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Good day Friends!

After pruning and water change:
22254784_10155512716686609_1029360287496428227_o.jpg


A close up of my problem with pedicellata:
22290057_10155512716666609_7724094814821556998_o.jpg
 

Pikez

Rotala Killer!
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Is the problem with Ludwigia glandulosa new? I seem to recall your previous tanks did not affect this plant.

Have you changed ANYTHING at all?

If you look, you can see the pedicellata becoming un-stunted. There is one good pedicellata stem and others are starting to recover. It almost appears as if what's helping the Ammannia is hurting the Ludwigia...??

Always start the fix with increasing CO2 or checking to make sure that CO2 is not an issue. A little more does not hurt and it will help eliminate it as a potential cause. Increase your bubble rate just a little bit and see what happens.

With intermediate to advanced hobbyists, 9 out of 10 times, when you have problems with Ammannia, Rotala, Alternanthera, and this plant, it is not CO2. But you have to eliminate that possibility. With beginners, 9 out of 10 times problems are caused by CO2 and maintenance negligence. This is because if/when there is a CO2 problem, advanced hobbyists identify and fix the problem. Beginners don't know that they have a CO2 problem.
 

Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
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Hi Pikez!

Is the problem with Ludwigia glandulosa new? I seem to recall your previous tanks did not affect this plant.
I have never been able to keep it in perfect condition, in fact I believe this occasion is my best attempt hahaha.

If you look, you can see the pedicellata becoming un-stunted. There is one good pedicellata stem and others are starting to recover. It almost appears as if what's helping the Ammannia is hurting the Ludwigia...??
I hope they continue growing well. The last time start growing well but suddenly the problem of the twisted leaves came back.

Always start the fix with increasing CO2 or checking to make sure that CO2 is not an issue. A little more does not hurt and it will help eliminate it as a potential cause. Increase your bubble rate just a little bit and see what happens.

With intermediate to advanced hobbyists, 9 out of 10 times, when you have problems with Ammannia, Rotala, Alternanthera, and this plant, it is not CO2. But you have to eliminate that possibility. With beginners, 9 out of 10 times problems are caused by CO2 and maintenance negligence. This is because if/when there is a CO2 problem, advanced hobbyists identify and fix the problem. Beginners don't know that they have a CO2 problem.
Well, i measure the amount of Co2 by the Ph-Kh table.

And look i have 132 ppm
Captura.PNG


I think my high Kh Levels may be the problem, what do you think?
 

Pikez

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Ludwgia glandulosa is a plant that lots of people have problems with. Shedding or lower leaves, stem melts, and twisted leaves are all common. Some tip stunting. I don't know what causes these issues. I'd keep this plant if I had an open-top tank that I viewed mostly from above. This is one of those plants that looks better from above than from the side.

Once I'm done with my Rotala experiments, I may get around to playing with other troublesome species like this, Alternanthera, and possibly others with mid-level difficulty like Proserpinaca.
 

Pikez

Rotala Killer!
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May 12, 2013
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Well, i measure the amount of Co2 by the Ph-Kh table.

And look i have 132 ppm
View attachment 9126

I think my high Kh Levels may be the problem, what do you think?

Those pH/KH/CO2 charts are completely useless. It's total bull sh*t. I don't know what your CO2 level is, but it is not 132 ppm.

My tank is KH 2 and pH of 5.5 in the afternoon. That's not even in the chart. According to calculators, I have 190 ppm CO2. That's a even bigger pile of bull sh*t. (Edit: Sorry, my CO2 peak yesterday dropped the pH to 5.2 with KH of 2. So my CO2 was actually 378.6 ppm :cool:)

This is why you should use pH drop using a calibrated pH probe as a metric for CO2 level. Even that does not tell you how much CO2 you have. But the relative drop in pH is a indication that you near the optimal area. If you drop your pH 1.0 to 1.2, you don't have to worry about CO2 much. What I am suggesting to you is, if your pH drop is 1.0, try dropping it a little more, to may be 1.3 and see what happens.

I don't think your Ammannia will improve at 1.3. I say this because mine did not improve at 1.5 or 1.8 or even 2.0, which was too toxic for fish.

But increasing the CO2 should always be your first step to solving problems. Once you have done that, you can eliminate CO2 as a potential cause. After that, you are free to focus on other things.

Problem solving in this hobby falls into two groups - people who say every problem is CO2 related and others who say everything is nutrient related. I think both groups are reductive and over-simplified.

As I said before, if you are beginner, chances are that you are struggling with CO2 and maintenance issues - this is when you have algae problems. These are the people who want to add more nitrates to get rid of BGA or more phosphates to get rid of GSA. For these people, yes, CO2 issues and laziness are the top two causes of problems.

If you don't have algae problems and most of your plants grow well, chances are that you know enough about CO2. Chances are you are not a beginner. You are past the algae stage. Other than unexpected equipment problems like broken solenoid, stuck valves, undetected leaks, empty CO2 tanks etc., which all advanced hobbyists invariably fall victim to but can detect and resolve, CO2 issues are mostly behind you at this point. Light is almost never an issue.

So that leaves nutrients and water chemistry. This is where your Ammannia and Ludwigia problems come from.

Your KH of 11 is not idea for all plants. Some, like Rotala Sunset like hard water, obviously! Others, like macrandra like softer water. I have grown most of these plants well in both extremely soft and moderately hard water, depending on where the nutrients are. In hard water, I can grow them all if the fertilizer is limited to the roots. If I am dosing fertilizer into water column, the advantage goes to soft water.

I don't know why. If you have very soft water, these plants seem to tolerate higher water fertilizer levels and seem less forgiving in hard water. This is very preliminary observation, so I am not willing to say this is fact.
 

Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
41
49
18
Hello Folks!
I share the progress of my tank.
I made some changes, i removed some varieties of plants (Ludwigia Glandulosa) I also reduced the photoperiod, from 11 to 8 hours and the plants look better, but I still have problems with the pedicellata golden hahaha.
22904890_10155575989371609_8563453923715386146_o.jpg
 

Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
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You dose K2SO4 ?

Your addition of 12 g (equivalent to 1 tsp + 1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp + 1/8 tsp ) K2SO4 to your 125gal aquarium adds:
Element ppm/degree
K 11.38 ppm .... 3x, then 34ppm weekly, right???

I do not add k2so4, I only use KNO3 and KH2PO4. And my proportion according to what I add weekly is:
N - 35 ppm
P- 7.75 ppm
K -25 ppm
 

Achel Ochoa

Junior Poster
May 28, 2017
41
49
18
Hello!
Today I checked the values of my tap water and found that the sulphate values are high. Sulfates (as SO4 =) 91.30 mg / L
This excess of sulphates can cause other nutrients not to be absorbed?