Hi Guys.
Not a "Kill Tank" experiment, but a small scale experiment nonetheless....
For some reason, the various hygrophilias, echinodorous's etc in my tank generally grow fine - but Ludwigia (I think it's natans, but it might be repens, I'm not sure) - doesn't. Whenever I plant it, the stem starts to blacken and that's it. I am very careful with the stem.
I thought I would try an experiment.
I took some plastic cups and filled them with some $2 gold fish bowl gravel from K-Mart. I added nothing else, so nutritional value of this substrate must be zero.
Putting the ludwigia stems in; it's now been a couple of weeks and the stems have not turned black. The plant appears to be doing ok.
Needless to say everything else is the same; same tank, same location in tank (therefore same flow/lighting) etc etc.
Why is it that the plant stems are not turning black in the cheap crappy gravel yet are in the expensive Seachem Flourite?
The stems did not have any roots on them when I planted them in either substrate (they might have roots on them now, but I don't want to pull them up to check at this stage).
If the stems don't have any roots, can they still take it nutrients from the substrate, or only via their leaves without roots??
I probably need to do a "refresher course" on nutrient uptake, it's been a while (busy with other things).
Can somebody remind me - when plants uptake nutrients (via roots/leaves), plants aren't "selective" are they? i.e. they don't grab just what they need and what they don't need? They just take up the whole damn lot. If the water contains an "imbalance" in terms of micro nutrients, the plant will therefore potentially take up a lot more of something it doesn't need and potentially little of what it does? I've been using Rexolin APN and a bit of Osmocote+ on the glass floor; is it possible my substrate is loaded up with various micronutrients but the relative proportions of each are so far out of whack that for this particular plant it's curling up it's toes? (On that note - if this is the case - the plants that are doing ok in my tank might actually have the potential to do better).
Short of completely replacing the substrate I'm not sure how I would rectify this if this was the case (physically cleaning the substrate is one thing; but chemically purging it??).
Thoughts?
Scott.
Not a "Kill Tank" experiment, but a small scale experiment nonetheless....
For some reason, the various hygrophilias, echinodorous's etc in my tank generally grow fine - but Ludwigia (I think it's natans, but it might be repens, I'm not sure) - doesn't. Whenever I plant it, the stem starts to blacken and that's it. I am very careful with the stem.
I thought I would try an experiment.
I took some plastic cups and filled them with some $2 gold fish bowl gravel from K-Mart. I added nothing else, so nutritional value of this substrate must be zero.
Putting the ludwigia stems in; it's now been a couple of weeks and the stems have not turned black. The plant appears to be doing ok.
Needless to say everything else is the same; same tank, same location in tank (therefore same flow/lighting) etc etc.
Why is it that the plant stems are not turning black in the cheap crappy gravel yet are in the expensive Seachem Flourite?
The stems did not have any roots on them when I planted them in either substrate (they might have roots on them now, but I don't want to pull them up to check at this stage).
If the stems don't have any roots, can they still take it nutrients from the substrate, or only via their leaves without roots??
I probably need to do a "refresher course" on nutrient uptake, it's been a while (busy with other things).
Can somebody remind me - when plants uptake nutrients (via roots/leaves), plants aren't "selective" are they? i.e. they don't grab just what they need and what they don't need? They just take up the whole damn lot. If the water contains an "imbalance" in terms of micro nutrients, the plant will therefore potentially take up a lot more of something it doesn't need and potentially little of what it does? I've been using Rexolin APN and a bit of Osmocote+ on the glass floor; is it possible my substrate is loaded up with various micronutrients but the relative proportions of each are so far out of whack that for this particular plant it's curling up it's toes? (On that note - if this is the case - the plants that are doing ok in my tank might actually have the potential to do better).
Short of completely replacing the substrate I'm not sure how I would rectify this if this was the case (physically cleaning the substrate is one thing; but chemically purging it??).
Thoughts?
Scott.
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