Balancing Calcium and Magnesium

Tom Barr

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Reducing the light will reduce all stress related to not enough CO2 or any one nutrient.

I think Carbon balance is far more important overall, nutrients are very easy to simply do a water change once a week and dose 3x or so to ensure consistent ppm's and ratios.

That is very easy, light and CO2? These are larger players here.
 

scottward

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Yeah, I think reducing your light will make a big difference.

Can you do a quick summary of how you have things set up at the moment, so everything is clear in a single post?

E.g. - lighting type/wattage/duration, CO2 on time, off time, method of diffusion, fertilisation routine etc etc.

From memory you have a powerhead moving the water about. Not too much surface turbulence? Non breaking surface movement is good (lots of oxygen).

Scott.
 

grshs_vny

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Scott its a 25gallon molded (2*2*1.5 vertical)tank,using T5 9 inches above the tank,initially i was using 24W*24W for the whole photo period and adding another 24W*24W for noon burst,which is for about 2 hours.After Tom's post i reduced it to only 48W increased CO2 slowly i had success for a brief amount of time but don't know what happened thereafter the new growth is severely tiny and twisted and thought its CO2 again so i raised CO2 slowly and stressed all my fish, within 3 days gassed all the fish and moved them to another tank,during this whole time i never compromised with CO2 and never decreased it.Now am running plants only tank with only 24W for the whole photo period. am sure now i have decent concentration of CO2 during photo period.

Am using single stage and single gauge regulator,so i have little control over CO2 injection between days,i entirely rely on bubble counter.
Here are the numbers:

am doing E.I
Day1--------------------------------------------7ppm NO3,10ppm K,2ppm PO4
Day2--------------------------------------------1/8tsp Fe edta 13%,1/8tsp trace

Cycle continues till Day6 and Day7 70% water change

Not adding Ca & Mg.

Using power head(800l/h) above disc diffuser for misting & another 1000l/h power head for circulation.
Not much surface turbulence
CO2 ON @7am & CO2 OFF @5pm
Light ON @ 8am & light OFF @ 7pm
@ night tank is aerated using air pump
Using canister filter for filtration & cleaned once in every month.


Any thing else???????



One thing to mention -at the start of photo period the leaves are bent downwards(not curling) but after half the photo period they becomes normal but bent again @ next morning.

Non breaking surface movement is good (lots of oxygen).

O2 or CO2 ?????????
 

darkoon

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did you get a copy of your local water report to see what else it already contains?
if you have access to RO water, it may be worth to see if that helps.
 

ShadowMac

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How will the RO water help with this? RO water would remove any Ca, Mg in the water. Unless he is concerned with the carbonate hardness, then I don't see what good RO would do.
 

darkoon

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ShadowMac;71703 said:
How will the RO water help with this? RO water would remove any Ca, Mg in the water. Unless he is concerned with the carbonate hardness, then I don't see what good RO would do.

if he is doing EI, have good CO2 and good light, the only uncertainty is the tap water at this point.
 

Tom Barr

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I've rarely, very rarely, found Tap to be an issue.

Maybe 3-5 cases out 10,000 or more.

All had well water or old copper pipes.
 

grshs_vny

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if he is doing EI, have good CO2 and good light, the only uncertainty is the tap water at this point.

This is what am thiking.

Now am with good circulation,low light,good consistency but still have issues with growth so to make sure i am compltely shifted to full RO.

Lets see what happens next
 

Tom Barr

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All you need to do is read Liebig's Law of the Minimum for any worries regarding ratios or balance between nutrients.

It states that growth is controlled not by the total amount of resources available, but by the scarcest resource (limiting factor).

This means ratios can vary, by massive ranges without much, if any effect.
If you are running nutrients very lean....then you will see shifts from one limiting factor by small changes in dosing.
If you do NOT run nutrients lean, then you do not have such issues. Ratios have virtually no meaning, what does is the individual limiting factor/s.

I have stated this for the last 15+ years. It is basic agriculture/horticulture principles. The ratio monkey business likely stems from Redfield ratios. That is the most abused idea in aquatic biology I would suggest.
 

grshs_vny

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O.k Tom i agree the ratios has a very little,if at all,effect on curling,stunted/deformed tip.

Everything except Rotala verticillaris looking good but no perling in any plants.
 

Tom Barr

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grshs_vny;72345 said:
O.k Tom i agree the ratios has a very little,if at all,effect on curling,stunted/deformed tip.

Everything except Rotala verticillaris looking good but no perling in any plants.

I'd focus elsewhere, look at CO2, look at light, adjust those. Do more or less frequent water changes etc.
Change current.

Etc, you go after other things, clean filters more often, see if anything is clogging CO2/water flow etc.
I've found some really dumb things that caused the problems I've had over the years.

So I cannot possibly figure EVERY possible cause for issues with plants................but...........I can know what does not cause problems.
So I, like yourself, need to go down and check and recheck each step. I've found VERY little relationships with my ferts and plants as logn as the basic aquarium stuff is runnign good, then the rest is CO2/light, water changes, good general care and good horticulture.

There is no secret or some magical fert routine.
Many seem to seek this, I'm not sure why.
 

Tom Barr

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grshs_vny;81920 said:
Tom, you won.

Did the plant recover with the changes you made?
We had a local claim similar to this and we were able to rule tap water and many other issues.

CO2/light, that's really where it's at, good filters, good clean caring for the tank etc.

ADA talks about it a lot actually, but folks skip over that and think nutrients, other products etc.
 

Petex

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The ratio monkey business likely stems from Redfield ratios. That is the most abused idea in aquatic biology I would suggest.
Redfield ratio is unimportand for aquatic plant grow, but nutrition ratio´s may have some impact how some plants will do.
You can see on the Screenshoot a Cuphea (aka "Rotala Araguia") grown unter different nutritients ratios.
It can look red, "vivid pink" or still "ugly/blury" green.
Many Rotalas like H´Ra, Macrandras, Colorata, Mexicana Goias, Wallichi will do the same under different nutrition ratios.
 
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ShadowMac

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To me all those pictures look like they are under different lighting conditions as well, not to mention perhaps some post pic touch ups. If you use the "green color" as a base in which to compare the other colors.
 

Petex

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No, all pics were taken from the same tank.
There are also some German threads for example about Rotala Macrandra´s species and their visuell appearence ( http://www.flowgrow.de/artenbestimmung/rotala-macrandra-sp-t19509-15.html )
Those pics all show the same Rotala Macrandra Green (same tank/same T4 lightning):
http://www.flowgrow.de/download/file.php?id=30787&mode=view/m3aa.jpg
http://www.flowgrow.de/download/file.php?id=30786&mode=view/m3a.jpg
They can also be "morphed" with special trimm technics: http://www.flowgrow.de/download/file.php?id=30442&mode=view/green.jpg
In the Foreground you see "stock Macandra Green" with long leafs - behind (with the red tips) you see a "morped Macandra Green" with round leafs.


Or for example this "Green Bacopa" and Limnophilia Mini vietnam:
http://www.flowgrow.de/gallery/image.php?album_id=1223&image_id=17540
http://www.flowgrow.de/download/file.php?id=29674
Such plants normally still look green, but they can look "different & vivid".
I am no scaper, I still collect tiny NanoPlants and believe me you can do much funny things with plants and their visuell apperance.
You still need to figure out the right ratios. ;)
 
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Tom Barr

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Petex;82011 said:
No, all pics were taken from the same tank.
There are also some German threads for example about Rotala Macrandra´s species and their visuell appearence ( http://www.flowgrow.de/artenbestimmung/rotala-macrandra-sp-t19509-15.html )
Those pics all show the same Rotala Macrandra Green (same tank/same T4 lightning):
http://www.flowgrow.de/download/file.php?id=30787&mode=view/m3aa.jpg

I've have this same plant and depending on where in the group you remove and tank a picture, even with the same group regardless of the dosing, I can easily find 2 stems that look like the examples.

Plants will self shade, so called intraspecific competition.

It seems you are looking for pre drawn conclusions rather than addressing the issue step wise. I've had a lot more experience with Ca and Mg than most of these folks and I can adjust and play around with photoshop just fine.

There are quite a few things that it could be.............but simply adjusting the Ca and Mg does not imply anything other than correlation, all it takes is for one person to to do a different ratio and it falsifies their claim.

I've adjusted Ca and Mg quite a bit and had tap water with very very different Ca and Mg ppm's. I've also pointed out that if folks do not dose Mg and are not addign enough to start with, and assume their GH had/has a nice ideal Ca and Mg ppm...then they will think this.
This is what folks are seeing, the absolute ppm of the individual nutrients are causign effect, it has nothing to do with the ratios.

Liebig's law predicts and states this.

This a fundamental and basic law on plant fertilization.
Ratios have little support in research for plant agriculture.

In each picture, a mere change of the light bulb color temperature can actually make the appearance more pronounced than what you have shown.
Or a change in CO2, position, age of the stem as it grows closer to the surface, pruning of other plants within the tank........they cleaned the filter recently on and on...........

Rather than playing with a ratio, try this: simply increase the levels up individually. Just like Liebig suggest.
You should see more growth if you get any effects with Ca/Mg prior.

Mg limitation will also produce a stronger red, but slowed/reduced/limited growth. Chlorophyll a and b require Mg and N in significant amounts..........., these pigments mask the red and yellow pigments.

That's likely what may be going on perhaps.

In well fertilized tanks that do not apply ratios and instead apply Liebig law, we still see nice colors............but we have higher rates of growth, so the tissue tends to have a higher % of newer tip growth, leading to more red color. with good CO2 also, the ability to make ample red and yellow pigments is much easier, thus more is made without having to allocate carbon to other more important demands.

I know Toby likes to suggest this Ca/Mg thing and how it's some sort of mircle and he cannot explain why it is..........but simply adding GH booster like we do in the USA has similar effects.
This suggest it's just a mild limitation of Mg.
Not anything to do with the ratios.

Anything above non limiting is non limiting and thus a ratio will only matter if the range is limiting............


If it is limiting, then the system is no longer independent. It is dependent on the most limiting factor. Adding more will cause the system to shift and perhaps more from a Mg limited system, to a CO2 limited system........which we'd have more issues with growth, algae etc than a mild limitation of Mg.
None of these issues seemed to be brought up in these discussions, there is very little critical skepticism.

It would help most newer hobbyist to learn more about basic plant physiology. Basic laws and concepts that are the foundation are often overlooked.