tank problems

hi Tom and others,

I am still figuring out how to get a beautiful planted tank and I want to share the things I have done and if possible get some advice.

So, a couple of months ago I had some BGA again and again. I was able to get rid of it by a combination of kanamycin and lowering a bit in PO4 (I know, it is not according to tom's philosophy.... but it worked)

Now I wanted to optimalize the CO2 concentration, so I made two outlets on the CO2 valve and connected that to two powerheads of 200 l/h. It gave a nice mist all over the the tank, but the result was a disaster: plants stopped growing and a lot of BBA appeared.

here some pics:







I think you can imagine that I didn't like this. So I changed the setup again. I setup again the good old external CO2 reactor and made two outlets to insert the CO2 at both ends of the tank. Further I installed a 600 l/h powerhead and connected the second CO2 outlet to the powerhead in order to get a nice mist. I see indeed again the tank covered in small bubbles...
Moreover, some plants are starting to grow again: the rotala, blyxa and mayaca are now doing fine. (see next post because I am limited to 4 pics).

So that's oke now. I see however that the stargrass can not branch or grow happily further. The leaves stay white and there is no growth. I do see new growth, but this arises from new sprouts that were originally below the gravel. So it will definately take some time to renew the bunch. But as you can see, the new growth is looking fine:
but why can the old stems not grow anymore???



So, overall the situation is better since I changed the CO2. But in general, it can be better. For instance, I still have quite some algae and (importantly) the downoi hasn't grown and that is not the most difficult plant. But why have I dificulties with this plant? Since I have it, it has not grown, just stayed the same size and is now slowely dying...
My thought was a Mg deficiency because the nerves are still green whereas the other parts are white.

Is it possible to give me some advice???

to do so I provide the most important information below (as well as a pic of the complete tank in the next reply)


tank: 160 liters
light: 3x 30 watt T8, for 10 hours
pH: 5.8
KH: 3 (accoring to water company and the testkit)
GH: 6-8
Ca: the water that I use for waterchanging contains 17 mg/l, on top of that I add 7 mg/l Ca per week to the tank, so the final concentration will be 17+14=31
Mg: the water that I use for waterchanging contains 3 mg/l. I do not add extra Mg. IS 3 MG/L TOO LOW????
PO4: 0.8 mg/l, I add 0.3 mg/l/day
NO3: not known due to iron interference with the testkit, but I add 3 mg/l/day
B: I add 0.05 mg/l boron per week for just in case....
flourish: 3-4 ml/day
flourish iron: 3-4 ml/day

I hope you can give some advice!

greetz,

yme

 

hmmm, I don't think so.
I had connected two bubble counters as well. And the CO2 bubble rate was higher than I could count. All that CO2 has to go somewhere...

greets,

yme

 

well we have a discussion! very nice

To start with the CO2 issue (that is I think solved now):
before the installation of the two 200 l/h powerheads, I had one 600 l/h and one 900 l/h powerhead connected to the CO2 outlets. The plants grew reasonably well than. Only after the change to the 200 l/h powerheads the real problems began. So I think really that I was low on CO2 with the 200 l/h powerheads. And that I am now able to keep the levels more up.

In respect to NO3/PO4:
I dose NO3 according to the EI. adviced is 16-33 mg/l/week. I dose 21 mg/l/week.
PO4 is recommended at 4.2-8.4 mg/l/week. I dose 2.1 mg/l/week. So that is much lower. However, I measure the PO4 level by photospectrometer which I calibrated and think gives accurate results. If I add more PO4 per day I see the level slowly rising during the week, if I lower the PO4 dose I see a decrease in PO4 levels during the week. So I *think* I am not far of in dosing PO4....

the new plant growth:
blyxa and mayaca appear to be happy.
The few stems of new growth in the stargrass are normal as well (as you can see in the pic)
The rotala is doing reasonably, but the tops could be bigger and fuller.
the downoi has almost no new growth but the new leaves that are formed are very small and white and tend to die away in time
The proserpinaca species cuba has a bit too small new growth and the new leaves are a bit crinkled and twisted.
The potamogeton gayi has very whitish new growth and I think it has stopped growing as well. Basically the same situation as the stargrass.
hygrophila balsamica: new leaves are a bit small and tend to collect a lot of algae .


For the trace elements: I dose automatically. So I have a brownglass flask with 150 ml flourish and a brown glass flask with 150 ml flourish iron. So the trace elements are for quite some time at room temperature. Seachem said it wasn't a problem....
This morning I added 10 ml flourish and 10 ml flourish iron, let's see what happens! (will dose 10 ml every other day)

I hope this helps!

greetz and thanks,

Yme

 

thanks tom!

The graveling I already do. I like it!
As for the Mg, I have it at home so I will add p.e. 5 mg/l, that's no problem.

And very surprisingly, I just saw that tropica is being sold by an internet firm from which I got the downoi. They sell it just from sempember 9th! So I gues I am very lucky... I'll try it.

greetz,

yme

ps: TMG is now sold as plant nutrition liquid, right?

 

I use just plain gravel with a bit of red clay. So, not much ferts in there...

greetz,

yme

 

well, if things are as they are... iron of course

so you suggest stopping with flourish iron?
well, together with the other suggestion, I will be busy for quite some weeks!

greetz,

yme

 

well, almost a week later... let's have an update:
Last week I discvered that the bottle of flourish was covered in fungi. So I changed the flourish bottle (3 ml/day), used a little less flourish iron (2 ml/day) and gave a bit more Mg (4 mg/l after waterchange). (I measured the GH witrh a new testset: 10 degrees, I think we can rule out Mg or Ca deficiency...)



And watched.....
Basically some sort of green hair/fur algae starts rapidly to grow. It is now on every leave blocking the light to the chloroplasts of the plants . It is very easy to rub it of, collects a lot of dirt and in some places I think I see BGA on the leaves again. The glass was covered within 3 days with a nice green fur. But anyway it is a clear change

Concerning the plants: the plants that didn't grow still do not grow. Not a single leave appeared. So these plants leak a lot of nutrients into the watercolumn, possibly giving rise to the algae.
The newgrowth of the stargrass is still coming from the one stem, but it is growing and looks nice (although even the very new leaves are now covered in algae). The proserpinaca is growining nice, new leaves are bigger, but like the stargrass covered with this fur-like algae.
The rotala species vietnam has stopped to grow. It has now the "small leaves syndrome". due to less iron or more Mg?

Basically I think I have to remove the old, not growing plants and replace some nice fast growing stemplants for the moment. Just to get things going again.

Am I on the right track?

greets,

yme

 

dear all,

Just another update. I think that one of the main problems was the flourish. With all the fungus growing in it I can imagine that a lot of the nutrients were consumed and that I was in fact underdosing. Well, whatever the cause was I changed the following things: use of new flourish 3 ml/day, started adding excel (just to be sure that the C-supply isn't a big problem, despite my optimisation of the setup).
the other parameters were unchanged.

I see that the growthand assimilation is starting to return. Although the old really damaged plants do not, new sprouts are formed on several plants and look nice and green. Together: good news!

However, I have now some green fur-like algae that is taking the opportunity to grow on the old leaves, a bit on the new leaves, and on the glass. I hope and think this is temporarily, but what would be the suggestion to keep this algae under control in this period of plant-recovering? Should I just wait until the plants are healthy again or is there something that I can do temporarily? Possibly less light? Metabolism is slower, algae and plants are growing slower and the plants get the change to recover from the malnutrition?
Anyway, it is growing fast and is inhibiting the the light to reach the chloroplasts of the plants . I don't like it!







thanks!

yme

ps: sorry for the quality of the last two pics, something went wrong.. (but I hope you can see the algae anyway)