HC Cuba | Can you explain this problem?

[Flyinghellfish]

I noticed that the HC Cuba clippings that get tangled up in my moss or various other places, are a lot healthier than the ones I planted. Some clippings end up with long roots and great colour while my HC carpet is browning/yellowing.

I dose per EI dry and use Flourish as trace and Seachem Iron for ....wait for it.....wait for it..... IRON!

Taking some advice on another forum, I was told to add more K and Iron, while this helped the colour a bit, I have yet to see any new growth.

Specs :
6 gallon
23 watt 6500 K CFL
42 LED stock lighting 8000 k (Not very powerful and coverage is lacking.)
Nitrate : 5 - 10 ppm
Green Drop Checker with 4dkh (Yes, I did the whole ph checking and waiting 24 hour etc)
Flourite Black

So my question is, Why are the parts of the tank that are shaded or have reduced lighting, consist of the best looking HC Cuba? The pieces on my moss looks great along with the pieces that root by themselves. Is there such as a thing as too much lighting and too much pearling?

The tank was doing a lot better when I wasn't heavily fertilizing the water column.
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[Aquadream]

So my question is, Why are the parts of the tank that are shaded or have reduced lighting, consist of the best looking HC Cuba?

My experience is that tanks with HC carpets and high light in the general case is difficult to get it to work.
By the description of your set up I would say cut the lights a lot. No LED and the energy saving bulb to be reduced down to 15 - 18W at the most.

 

[Tom Barr]

Stick with lower light as suggested above.

It is not really a high light plant, I've seen many nice examples using minimal lighting and excellent long tern results, dosing has been very wide ranging.

 

[ShadowMac]

does HC recover well?

I have been struggling forever with my carpet and am hoping it can bounce back once I find the sweet spot.

 

[Flyinghellfish]

I'll lower the lights but why is too much light the cause of this? I can't get the HC to pearl very well if I lower my lights, leaving the lights alone I get major pearling yet retarded growth.

A lot of times, people have high lighting and encounter no problems. The MIN S/M light has a HQI 27 watt 8000k, surely this is much strong than my 23 watt 6500k CFL? Due to the physical limitation of the Fluval Edge, the 42 LED are mostly lighting the middle of the tank. The corners are dark/shaded, my light is a few inches above this corner/side of the tank.

Is it fertilizers? The few pieces that float in the water column look amazing, lush green colour and long roots. These pieces usually end up tangled in my moss and I'll find them floating around once they get too big for the moss.

Anyways, so about a 6 gallon tank what do you usually dose per EI?

1/8 tsp KNO3 x 3
1/32 ???? of P x 3
1/32 ???? of K x 3

Seachem iron 1 ml daily?
Seachem Flourish 1 ml x3 a week?

 

[Gerryd]

Hi,

Are you geting adequate flow/current past the HC? How does the moss entangled stuff compare in terms of flow?

Could this be a contributing factor?

 

[Flyinghellfish]

Flow is great, it's a Aquaclear 20 used on a 6 gallon and the Co2 bubbles do pass by the carpeting area. The taiwan moss example is at the other side of the tank in which I think flow is considerably less. It's strange but the best HC I have are the ones in the shade with little flow.

I have found PAR rating for the type of light I am using and it is about 120's at the base centre, so I know lighting is alright. If I move the desk lamp higher, the HC doesn't pearl.

23 watt CFL 3 - 4 inches from water line. Tank is about 7 inch deep, maybe a bit more.

 

[Doc7]

I've never had any plants pearl in my tank and I get great growth including HC and right now there's no algae except dust on the glass. Pearling isn't really important as far as I can tell.

Lots of surface movement for oxygenation, CO2 injection, T5 NO lighting 15 inches above substrate for 9 hours, EI dosing.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9650 using Tapatalk

 

[Flyinghellfish]

But what is causing the brown/burnt leaf tho? Too much light? I also found out that some stems in the shaded areas show the same problem.

Maybe too much of a certain fertilizer?

 

[ShadowMac]

I would say most likely CO2, HC is not very forgiving with CO2 and that has been my biggest problem with it. I had signs elsewhere that CO2 was not doing well. A couple stems that are finicky were stunting. They prove to be good CO2 indicators within my tank.

 

[Flyinghellfish]

I'm not sure Co2 alone could be the problem, if they are pearling then there must be some Co2 getting to them. Again, those ADA tanks have a HQI on them and they seem fine. I know flourite black is not the same as AS but there must be something I'm doing wrong rather than the equipment/material.

Could burnt leafs be a sign of TOO much fertilizers? I rarely dose flourish and I dose Iron daily. Maybe it's the iron?

 

[Matt F.]

I would say most likely CO2, HC is not very forgiving with CO2 and that has been my biggest problem with it. I had signs elsewhere that CO2 was not doing well. A couple stems that are finicky were stunting. They prove to be good CO2 indicators within my tank.

+1 I crank the co2 sky high.

 

[Flyinghellfish]

Co2 is already high, I know drop checkers are not the most accurate indicators but I have also did the 24 hour ph test.

Check tank ph , left tank water over night (24 hours) check ph again. There was a 1 to 1.5 ph difference. I believe it was 6.2 to 7.4, the difference in colour was very visible.

The good news is that the newer growth is coming in green. The burnt/brown leafs were pretty much dead and I thought I would see a difference in them. A week ago, I started to up my doses of K along with Iron. What I'm still confused about is how much of K does one need for HC Cuba? I'm not sure daily doses of 1/32 of Dry K is healthy for my painted red shrimps inhabitant.

What is a good dose for a 10 gallon? Should I still dose P if my fish food is rich in P? Also, I heard that too much Iron can cause similar problems like mine.
Forgot to add that my HC Cuba's leaf size is extremely small so you guys might be on to something about my lights being too strong.