Matt F.;123583 said:But there is a difference between injecting too much CO2 and not enough. This all depends on how much you off-gas. I was injecting approx. 5-6 bps, and my growth virtually stunted. I ended up dealing with GDA for years. My guess is that a majority of the gas was being released into the atmosphere rather than utilized by the plants. Now that I have reduced my injection to approx.
Matt F.;123635 said:I'm growing Rotala H'ra, L. Mini Vietnam, Ludwigia Arcuata, HM, and Eleocharis Belem. I wouldn't call my set-up a low-tech system. I run a ADA 150watt MH pendant above an ADA 60P. I am also injecting
Matt F.;123635 said:I'm growing Rotala H'ra, L. Mini Vietnam, Ludwigia Arcuata, HM, and Eleocharis Belem. I wouldn't call my set-up a low-tech system. I run a ADA 150watt MH pendant above an ADA 60P. I am also injecting
Matt F.;123667 said:I think Tom's right. Once you have it dialed in, set it and forget it. At most I move the Ideal Valve's knob maybe 1/16-1/32 a turn when I do a major trim. Now that I've removed all my stems except for the Rotala H'ra, I'll see how the tank does. I'm talking small increments of adjustment once you are in the ballpark. A far cry from 4-6 bps I was injecting before. My aquasoil is fairly new (set-up on 9/2013). I have no doubt that the aqua soil and my fish/shrimp are producing the needed nutrients. I may need to add some ferts later on.
Tom Barr;123718 said:I've never seen fish respond poorly post trim, typically the other way around since there's often more current and a bit more O2 and degassing.
If you uproot and pull up a lot of muck............then do a large water change, this mitigates any of the uprooting low O2 issues and organic matter.
So as long as you do the water change after the big hacking........you are in good shape.
Matt;'s hairgrass tank is not particularly a big nutrient hog, the few stems are the only thing and the fish waste along with relatively newer ADA AS takes care of the rest.
Hairgrass is pretty tough overall.
Tom Barr;123903 said:If you can manage a single species well and have consistent and nice throughout a tank, then also do a nutrient hog stem plant tanks, manage that well, then a low light tank...........and maybe a non CO2 tank............then you pretty much run most scenarios.
Awhile back on the net, I realized I can talk a great talk, but without nice examples of scapes and pictures, it's not really that strong of an argument.
You show a nice tank, thriving plants, scaping with the rare and hard to grow species under a wide range of conditions, then you pretty much can do whatever you like.
Plenty of folks can simply grow plants, but can they scape well with them? That's the REAL goal.
Many lost sight of that goal, others can do nice scapes, but are not that good at growing them, so they accept they can only use X, Y and Z plant species.
Persistent attacks on your own goal will get you there.