My Tanks

My last water change was 2 weeks ago on Saturday. Since then I have been dosing my standard EI micro dose of CSMB of 0.036 ppm B. I skipped water change last Saturday and skipped dosing on one day.

I also made a new mix of 0.15 ppm B per dose in a separate mix (11.37g in 500ml doses 5ml per dose for 0.15ppm) and been dosing it since last discussion which was Thursday, so total after skipping one day was 9 doses.


So total since last water change has been 1.85ppm Boron.


Results, no difference I would say.

Before my last mix I had been dosing 1ppm B, but made a mistake in my last calc.


Coupe of observations

First is seed pods on my Quinquangular which can be linked to B or the Molasses because both are knows to push rooting and fruiting. Before this (3 months ago) the Quinquangular would not throw seed pods. So I am linking this to my dosing regime.


Other than that, the tops of couple of my syns giants went yellow. Not sure what the root cause is, but it was 2 of 7 stems I had. They haven’t died but I am monitoring it. Boron is not favored by acid loving plants, and syns usually come from very low PH waters.


All other plants seem fine. I had been closing monitoring Ludwigia Spaherocarpa and sp Red. Both were fine. I also had added Didiplis which is doing very well. The Macrandras, mini butterfly, Variegated and the one Vin sent are all growing fine.

No stem melts as some of you had reported from their experience.


While I say all that, nothing seems to have really improved beyond what it was 2 weeks ago. Ammannia Crassicaulis still growing but has some twisted leafs, which can be attributed to low Ca. My Red Cross has stunted and again trying to unstunt, it’s the moodiest plant I have grown.

Rotala Wallichii, Magenta, Florida, sp Cramer all doing well.


What’s next, reintroducing some GH booster and start at 1tsp after WC which will add a mere 3.25 ppm of Ca and add to 0.68 of my GH.

The twisted leafs on some plants is what I need to fix and balancing B and Ca is going to be key. I am currently quite low on Ca and I will continue to increase GH booster by 1/2 tsp every week until I see improvement or issues.


I have been been doing more reading and 0.5ppm B and 60ppm Ca is what I think will optimum. But let’s see where this gets us.


So far I can say, B toxicity is real, but at levels we dose, if balanced with other elements 1ppm can be tolerated. What I have hearing from most who have ventured into high B is stem melt, however based on what I have read, B toxicity should appear on tips and edges of leafs, so while high B could have contributed to stem melts, it’s most likely competition with other elements which could have caused issues.


Please note that this could only apply to my tank or many tanks, depends on many variables, I also an blasting 250+ par at substrate which most tanks don’t.


Full tank shot




Mayaca sp. Santarem Red, growing slowly but quite ratty. Someone told me it’s a diffcult plant, doesn’t seem so.




Quinquangular with its seed pods.




Rotala/Cuphea Red Cross you can see some good tops and also see recent stunting and new better growth.




Rotala Macrandra Variegated has reached the top, had to trim it down.

You can also see some Didiplis there, starting to take color, was green when I got it.




Cuphea has come crinkled tops but much better than few months ago.




Rotala Wallichii




Ammannia Crassicaulis leafs have become full size now but seats continue to twist or curl.




Last stem of my Ludwigia sp Red. You can also see Spaherocarpa, Aciotis and yellow top on my Syn Giant

 

Another week went by with 1ppm B dosing.

Plant growth remains same. The addition of little Ca helped a bit with some leafs of Ammannia but not by much.

The downoi got stunt since I moved them. I got some new Buces which took their place, Monitoring closely if its the higher light related in new location or dosing.

Quinquangular has been seeding a lot, I thing they are lost case. We will see.




Decided to thin out the Rotala Florida to make room for Rotala Ramosior sp. Cramer.




The Macrandras have been very happy. I am liking the wild Bronze Srilanka (not specifically named) from Vin. Gonna try to grow a bush and see.





Also, once of my emersed bins. Hoping they survive the winter. I have been moving plants out into such bins because I am bored of them.

 

I am using Lightroom to take pics. It tries to get more true color but it washes out greens. Still playing with settings.

I have never been able to grow BV in any other than Aquasoil and Tom should know how much I have bought from him prior to me switching to Aquasoil.
I just sold 10 mother plants like ones I sent you, I am gonna let the others fatten up.

As far as B goes. Some of it can be CEC, soil continuously binds ions as zones get free due to plant uptake or bacterial activity.
I do want to get a B test just to check. I don’t want residual B to cross beyond 2 at which I am sure I am going to see problems.
I am also sure my Quinquangular is not liking it. All this seeding stuff started when I began the experiment, and now I am almost sure I am going to see it melt away.

While it’s not dying the way Boron toxicity will behave but I think there is a correlation.
Other observations, the Syn giants are definitely unhappy, 3 of 6 plants have dead tops since which is definitely a B symptom. They were showing some green in center but now it’s dead. The bottoms have splits so I am hopping I get new shoots. Syns had slowed down a lot since I began this experiment and I think it’s reached its max.

All others seem to be chugging along.
I won’t say there are no issues, I get some stunted tops on Rotalas here and there but I always had those and I am hoping to fix those with this experiment.
Ludwigias are happy. Liminophila and hygros too.

 

Sorry. Its been long since I posted.
Facebook has been my primary mode of sharing and getting instead feedback for quick discussions, however it’s not a place to get constructive advice or journaling.

I had promised a few of you who also follow my posts on FB about a update so here it goes.

Last time I posted, I was dosing 1ppm B weekly.
The outcome, atleast for my tank, and I would make it clear that’s this is only tue for my tank, that 1plm B didn’t cause issues with most plants. Few plants responded but most didn’t care.
That positive reaction also may be temporary because even after I stopped dosing high Boron, the plants stayed same.
The negatives of high Boron was Quinquangular which seeded a lot with no new growth and Syn Giants which had melted tops.
That experiment ended when my 1000ml of solution was over. Will I dose that high again, may be no, does it really cause toxicity at 1ppm, conditional to tank and plant.

More to follow. No pics with this post because it’s not relevant.

 

Switch to Ammonium Nitrate and auto doser

My work involves traveling and whenever I travel it means tanks do not get dosing.

I have tried many tricks, dose upfront and keep lights same, dose upfront and lower lights, dose half and reduce lights, but always came back to something not being right.

I had a coupe of IceCap doser sitting for a long time so I calibrated it and set it up.
As a result, I switched to daily dosing for macros and micros.
The results were very good, plants responded a bit better and as always some unhappy stems here and there were not unhappy anymore.

I would really recommend everyone to switch to daily dosing. Alternate day dosing or front loading is not necessarily better and is not needed.
I will warn you this, it makes it boring,since your daily interaction with tank for dosing goes away, all you do is go and check the tank when you find time, the discipline of dosing daily goes away.

Thing aren’t good to read if there is no tragedy in true American way. As I already mentioned my travel, one thing I forgot was changing CO2 tanks before I go. I did the most logical thing, called my wife and told her to swap a 20lb cylinder and use her muscles to unscrew and then screw on a regulator. After she told to go to hell, I called back a few hours later and pleaded her to turn off the light which was the next most logical thing to do.

Result, some plants melted I think from lack of CO2 and light, I lost very well growing Rotala Mexican red and Tulu. Luckily no algae since there was no light feeding it. Not sure if daily dosing added to any issues during this time.

I switched to Ammonium Nitrate as my source for N sometime in February.

As expected, after a long time I started seeing some green bubble type algae on my glass.


Plants like Ammania, Blood Vomit, Quinquangular and Red Cross responded very positively. So did some algae. I has stains of green on Hygrophila Chinensis and some other plants.


I still stuck to my rule of no cleaning the glass. The algae would die off and again come back after water change. The plants kept doing better and filter caught up and that green algae was no more.


Why Ammonium Nitrate?

Fact is that plants are capable of using both NO3 and NH4.

Its toxicity is dependent on PH of water and my PH is usually below 7 so I was safe there.

However another fact is that most plants take up NH4 using roots only. You must have heard many talk about rich soil, the reason it works is plants roots have evolved to produce chemicals that can breakdown and help uptake of nutrients. Plants can produce different root hairs to uptake specific nutrients. Also bacteria in root zone play a very important part of making nutrients available.


So, why dose Ammonium at water column? By now you should know there is no specific reasoning I follow other than to prove something right or wrong.

Also I assume that I am feeding the bacteria in soil and filter and some of that ammonia is making its way to the roots.

Also the following article.

https://plantcellbiology.masters.grkraj.org/html/Plant_Cell_Biochemistry_And_Metabolism4-Nitrogen_Metabolism.htm


Well so far I am liking it. I will be switching to Urea with next batch of macros.