Well....
I have a 18.5 gallon tank with Flourite substrate and an HQL light with a 80 watt 3,200 kelvin lamp (that's a lot of light! )
My water parameters are kH 5, pH 6.35
water change 40% per week ( reverse osmosis 50 % and tap water 50% )
I have pressurized CO2 and i control my pH with a controller
Filter: Eheim ecco 2232
It has been a week since i also added a Nano Koralia for better circulation.
My plants are hemianthus micranthemoides blyxa japonica, hygrophylla difformis pogostemon helferi ,cuba and didiplis diandra and a little of rotala wallichi.
As i was reading a lot of articles through this forum about two weeks ago i realized how important CO2 is for the planted aquarium. So the next morning i bought a ferplast reactor to introduce CO2 in my aquarium. Before i was introducing CO2 by using a plastic air stone... i thought that i found what was going wrong so i was happy ..however two weeks later the plant symptoms are still the same..
On to the symptoms...
My plants do not photosynthesize at all!!! i have been looking at them alla day and i do not see any bubles at all!! The plants are yellow-green, the stem is strong but the leafs are so thin and transparent and brittle which are driving me crazy. Of course, if there is no photosynthesis it is normal that my plants are like that because they do not build up the sugar (starch) that they need right?
I have also noticed that the growth is very slow and that the new leaves have a brighter colour than the old ones...
After i put my fersplast reactor to work i bought 2 new plants so i could see if they would respond in the same way and they diid so probably it is not a Co2 defficiency....
All this time i was dosind Seachem flourish, seachem nitrogen, fleet enema for PO4 and iron every day and i was using my test kits to make surw the plants are getting the right nutrients...
Two days ago i read about Estimative Index which i found really really interesting so i said i will give it a shot... I bought the dry ferts and made a solution of KNO3 and KH2PO4 so since yesterday i started Estimative Index....
Also i cut down the hours of my light from 8 to 6... As i was reading a book about plant physiology i read about photoinhibition. I though maybe the light is so much that photosynthesis has paused
"Photoinhibition is a reduction in a plant's (or other photosynthetic organism's) capacity for photosynthesis caused by exposure to strong light (above the saturation point). " wikipedia....
I want so much to grow plants and i have been having so much trouble....
Does anyone have any suggestions on what may be going wrong? is just a nutrient defficiency?
Thank you for reading my "short" post. : )
George
I have a 18.5 gallon tank with Flourite substrate and an HQL light with a 80 watt 3,200 kelvin lamp (that's a lot of light! )
My water parameters are kH 5, pH 6.35
water change 40% per week ( reverse osmosis 50 % and tap water 50% )
I have pressurized CO2 and i control my pH with a controller
Filter: Eheim ecco 2232
It has been a week since i also added a Nano Koralia for better circulation.
My plants are hemianthus micranthemoides blyxa japonica, hygrophylla difformis pogostemon helferi ,cuba and didiplis diandra and a little of rotala wallichi.
As i was reading a lot of articles through this forum about two weeks ago i realized how important CO2 is for the planted aquarium. So the next morning i bought a ferplast reactor to introduce CO2 in my aquarium. Before i was introducing CO2 by using a plastic air stone... i thought that i found what was going wrong so i was happy ..however two weeks later the plant symptoms are still the same..
On to the symptoms...
My plants do not photosynthesize at all!!! i have been looking at them alla day and i do not see any bubles at all!! The plants are yellow-green, the stem is strong but the leafs are so thin and transparent and brittle which are driving me crazy. Of course, if there is no photosynthesis it is normal that my plants are like that because they do not build up the sugar (starch) that they need right?
I have also noticed that the growth is very slow and that the new leaves have a brighter colour than the old ones...
After i put my fersplast reactor to work i bought 2 new plants so i could see if they would respond in the same way and they diid so probably it is not a Co2 defficiency....
All this time i was dosind Seachem flourish, seachem nitrogen, fleet enema for PO4 and iron every day and i was using my test kits to make surw the plants are getting the right nutrients...
Two days ago i read about Estimative Index which i found really really interesting so i said i will give it a shot... I bought the dry ferts and made a solution of KNO3 and KH2PO4 so since yesterday i started Estimative Index....
Also i cut down the hours of my light from 8 to 6... As i was reading a book about plant physiology i read about photoinhibition. I though maybe the light is so much that photosynthesis has paused
"Photoinhibition is a reduction in a plant's (or other photosynthetic organism's) capacity for photosynthesis caused by exposure to strong light (above the saturation point). " wikipedia....
I want so much to grow plants and i have been having so much trouble....
Does anyone have any suggestions on what may be going wrong? is just a nutrient defficiency?
Thank you for reading my "short" post. : )
George