Hi all,
Long-time not posted, but I do want to share some experiences of the last 4 months and ask some advice.
Previously, I had a 90 gallon bucephalandra tank that was nice, but there were problems: 1: curling of some of the new bucephalandra leaves, holes in new leaves of javaferns, bba, gsa. Tank was 100% osmosis water with re-addition of minerals by Sera mineral salts to 300 uS. The tanks was EI-style in terms of CO2 and fertilization with low light.
This was it:
Last year, I moved to a new house and I had to breakdown my tank. Instead of rebuilding it, I chose to have to smaller tanks, so that I could test 2 different conditions (in order to fix my problems). Here they are:
Main difference is that the left tank is 100% osmosis-based whereas the right is tapwater-based.
Left: osmosis-based tank
Right: tapwater-based tank
After 4 months on this regime I can share that the curling bucephalandra leaves are likely induced by the salts that are present in Sera mineral salt and tapwater. Moreover, I see stunting of the staurogyne repens ONLY in the in the tapwatertank. (happy happy
)
To go a bit more in detail: I add to the osmosistank the following macro’s: CaSO4.2H2O, MgNO3.6h2O, KH2PO4, KHCO3. This results in 20 mg/l Ca, 5 mg/l Mg, 21 mg/l K, 25 mg/l NO3, 2 mg/l PO4, 1.5 KH, 300 uS, Ph 6.2, CO2: 25 mg/l (measured by oxyguard CO2 meter). Traces are more or less 1/3 EI dosis, nothing special. So this tank is very similar in water parameters in terms of pH/KH/CO2/low light/fert regime as my previous tank. The only very obvious difference is that instead of Sera mineral salts I mix my own salts. Sera mineral salts contains quite some NaCl: I dosed salts to reach 300 uS and this adds 17 mg/l Na and 60 mg/l Cl. Given the recent posts that “blame” NaCl or other “things/salts” I think it is interesting to report my findings.
Now the comparison with the tapwater tank. I add the same amount of NO3 and PO4 to this tank, but because the tapwater already contains 6 mg/l Mg, I add NO3 via KNO3 instead of MgNO3. The tapwater contains further: 36 mg/l Ca, K:30 mg/l, Na: 62 mg/l, Cl: 55 mg/l, SO4: 26 mg/l, KH 8, 525 uS. Because I have an Oxyguard CO2 meter I can nicely quite precisely add CO2 to 25 mg/l. This results in a pH of around 7. Light, micro’s etc are the same as in the osmosistank.
The main difference that I noticed quite readily was chlorosis of the blyxa japonica. I made an Fe mix of 50%Fe-EDTA/ 50%Fe-gluconate and give a daily dosis of 0.03 mg/l to maintain a level around 0.25 mg/l. This was sufficient in the osmosistank, but not in the tapwatertank despite the observation that I measured in both tanks around 0.03 mg/l. I therefore changed fe-gluconate to Fe-DTPA and this issue was solved
However, this did not fix the stunting of the staurogyne repens nor did it fix the curling leaves of the bucephalandra. See the pics:
This leave did not unfold further.
I am very happy that I can deduce that the cause of bucephalandra unfolding problem must lie in the extra salts (NaCl?) of the Sera mineral salts and tapwater.
However: the other 2 “problems” remain in both tanks: bba and holes in new leaves of javafern:
To minimize bba, I dose daily 5 ml of 1.6% home-mixed glutaraldehyde, which should correspond to a 1x maximal dose of Excel/easy carbo. I do not have the impression that this does anything. I also tried spot treatment, but ended up frying leaves as well. So the remedy was worse than the disease. I think that the organic load of the tanks is low: no fish, 50% waterchange per week and the 2 eheim canister filters are cleaned every month and are quite clean.
I do see that the bba grows faster with more light. Not only absolute but also relative to the speed of the bucephalandra: bba emerges sooner on new leaves just below the lights than in places with lower light.
So I am at a loss… (perhaps spot treatment at 1/2x strength? But this does not fix the cause…)
Completely at a loss here… all 3 tanks show the same problem and I am seemly the only one on earth having this problem.
I am currently transforming the tapwater tank to a second osmosis tank to test new stuff.
So my question is: what do YOU think I should test? getting rid of bba is a priority
Things that I can think of: the growth of bba around the edges of the bucephalandra leaves are only possible if the plant gives bba this opportunity. So perhaps there is a minor deficiency? I could increase trace levels. On the other hand, I do hardly see any drop in PO4/NO3 during the week, so consumption of elements is probably low in general (and I doubt that 25 mg/l NO3 and 2 mg/l are necessary).
Greet,
Yme
ps: there are plenty cherry shrimps (and 6 amano's per tank)
Long-time not posted, but I do want to share some experiences of the last 4 months and ask some advice.
Previously, I had a 90 gallon bucephalandra tank that was nice, but there were problems: 1: curling of some of the new bucephalandra leaves, holes in new leaves of javaferns, bba, gsa. Tank was 100% osmosis water with re-addition of minerals by Sera mineral salts to 300 uS. The tanks was EI-style in terms of CO2 and fertilization with low light.
This was it:
Last year, I moved to a new house and I had to breakdown my tank. Instead of rebuilding it, I chose to have to smaller tanks, so that I could test 2 different conditions (in order to fix my problems). Here they are:
Main difference is that the left tank is 100% osmosis-based whereas the right is tapwater-based.
Left: osmosis-based tank
Right: tapwater-based tank
After 4 months on this regime I can share that the curling bucephalandra leaves are likely induced by the salts that are present in Sera mineral salt and tapwater. Moreover, I see stunting of the staurogyne repens ONLY in the in the tapwatertank. (happy happy
)To go a bit more in detail: I add to the osmosistank the following macro’s: CaSO4.2H2O, MgNO3.6h2O, KH2PO4, KHCO3. This results in 20 mg/l Ca, 5 mg/l Mg, 21 mg/l K, 25 mg/l NO3, 2 mg/l PO4, 1.5 KH, 300 uS, Ph 6.2, CO2: 25 mg/l (measured by oxyguard CO2 meter). Traces are more or less 1/3 EI dosis, nothing special. So this tank is very similar in water parameters in terms of pH/KH/CO2/low light/fert regime as my previous tank. The only very obvious difference is that instead of Sera mineral salts I mix my own salts. Sera mineral salts contains quite some NaCl: I dosed salts to reach 300 uS and this adds 17 mg/l Na and 60 mg/l Cl. Given the recent posts that “blame” NaCl or other “things/salts” I think it is interesting to report my findings.
Now the comparison with the tapwater tank. I add the same amount of NO3 and PO4 to this tank, but because the tapwater already contains 6 mg/l Mg, I add NO3 via KNO3 instead of MgNO3. The tapwater contains further: 36 mg/l Ca, K:30 mg/l, Na: 62 mg/l, Cl: 55 mg/l, SO4: 26 mg/l, KH 8, 525 uS. Because I have an Oxyguard CO2 meter I can nicely quite precisely add CO2 to 25 mg/l. This results in a pH of around 7. Light, micro’s etc are the same as in the osmosistank.
The main difference that I noticed quite readily was chlorosis of the blyxa japonica. I made an Fe mix of 50%Fe-EDTA/ 50%Fe-gluconate and give a daily dosis of 0.03 mg/l to maintain a level around 0.25 mg/l. This was sufficient in the osmosistank, but not in the tapwatertank despite the observation that I measured in both tanks around 0.03 mg/l. I therefore changed fe-gluconate to Fe-DTPA and this issue was solved
However, this did not fix the stunting of the staurogyne repens nor did it fix the curling leaves of the bucephalandra. See the pics:
This leave did not unfold further.
I am very happy that I can deduce that the cause of bucephalandra unfolding problem must lie in the extra salts (NaCl?) of the Sera mineral salts and tapwater.
However: the other 2 “problems” remain in both tanks: bba and holes in new leaves of javafern:
To minimize bba, I dose daily 5 ml of 1.6% home-mixed glutaraldehyde, which should correspond to a 1x maximal dose of Excel/easy carbo. I do not have the impression that this does anything. I also tried spot treatment, but ended up frying leaves as well. So the remedy was worse than the disease. I think that the organic load of the tanks is low: no fish, 50% waterchange per week and the 2 eheim canister filters are cleaned every month and are quite clean.
I do see that the bba grows faster with more light. Not only absolute but also relative to the speed of the bucephalandra: bba emerges sooner on new leaves just below the lights than in places with lower light.
So I am at a loss… (perhaps spot treatment at 1/2x strength? But this does not fix the cause…)
Completely at a loss here… all 3 tanks show the same problem and I am seemly the only one on earth having this problem.
I am currently transforming the tapwater tank to a second osmosis tank to test new stuff.
So my question is: what do YOU think I should test? getting rid of bba is a priority
Things that I can think of: the growth of bba around the edges of the bucephalandra leaves are only possible if the plant gives bba this opportunity. So perhaps there is a minor deficiency? I could increase trace levels. On the other hand, I do hardly see any drop in PO4/NO3 during the week, so consumption of elements is probably low in general (and I doubt that 25 mg/l NO3 and 2 mg/l are necessary).
Greet,
Yme
ps: there are plenty cherry shrimps (and 6 amano's per tank)
