Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

[sherry]

I can grow anything, it seems, except macrandra and inclinata. After a brief spurt of real leaves, mac is stunting again and inclinata is just ratty and thin looking.

okay tank

30 gallon cube.
eco complete
light 1 96 watt cf coralife 6700 k and one current usa fixture actinic 40 and daylight bulb 40 (10,000 and 6700 k). The coralife fixture sits over both mac and inclinata.
temp 78.
ph 6.0 during c02 injection
kh 1
gh 4 (as a result of adding gh booster at water changes
CO2 pressurized mist enough so that I always see mist floating around!
It flows in thru a sweetwater stone, which is positioned under two powerheads, each facing a different way.. the bubbles get sucked into the power heads and get spit out as mist and blown around the tank.

everything else grows beautifully including glandulosa, umbrosium, blyxa japonica and auberti and tonina fluviatalis and rotalla wallachi
No algae to speak of. I did fail to grow tonina belem, but at the time I was buffering to kh 3. I am no longer doing that.

Fert regime -- a strict EI now, no omissions. I use GregWatson macros
micros dosed as TMG.
water changes weekly at 50 percent.

Tom I am a total devotee. I slowly took on all of your advice.. My tank is gorgeous, but I really want to be able to grow these two plants! I am frustrated and determined! HELP HELP HELP.

I am using only gh builder 1/4 t, should I switch to 1/8 t ghb and 1/4 t magnesium.

should I buy some Amazonia Aqua Soil and put in pockets of it around my problem plants. ?

Is there something I'm missing.

When I added my first inorganic no3 I briefly got gorgeous growth from my mac and then it faded again.

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

You have a lot of light.
More light => more CO2 demand, more NO3 demand.
Macandra does well with less light and good macro ferts, amd CO2 mist hitting it.

I think the incliata is pretty easy if you use the ADA soil.
R. macrandra does not care either way.
Both are sensitive to the NO3 lowering and CO2.

Might try a bit more KNO3, especially if the tank is sparsely populated.
If the Tonia is doing well(this is the hardest species really on the Tonia's), then you have a good well run tank.

I have both plants in my 20 gal as well as Erios , L pantanal etc. They grow well when I have enough CO2.

Same for the R. macrandra.

I had some of the green L. incliata, that did well, something like Rotala "green". I've not had the pink red incliata for several years, but both of these will stunt easier in plain gravel, or poor CO2 vs ADA AS.

My tank is not really much different and the macrandra grows 4-6" a week, make sure the CO2 misty goes right into the these plants and add a tad more KNO3 and TMG(say 8mls every other day or close).

Plant-Plant competion for the nutrients can occur in some tanks.
Certain plants will be more agressive and and be able to use up the CO2, PO4 faster etc.

A large stand of a certain plants will tend to do better than a lot of small no# of plants that are many different species.

Try few plant species.
Don't worry, they will still sell the other species also
So if you want to go back, you always can.

Good current is also something both seems to enjoy.


Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[markis]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

You have a lot of light.
More light => more CO2 demand, more NO3 demand.
Macandra does well with less light and good macro ferts, amd CO2 mist hitting it.

Why do you suggest placing macrandra inside stream carrying CO2 mist? Is it big difference (considering amount of CO2) between CO2 mist water and rest of aquarium?

Plant-Plant competion for the nutrients can occur in some tanks.
Certain plants will be more agressive and and be able to use up the CO2, PO4 faster etc.

Is it an issue the speed of CO2 uptake by plants in terms of plant2plant competition in well saturated (let's say 30ppm of CO2) water? Do we have to expect portions of aquarium water to be poorer in CO2 than the rest?

I test my pH with water taken using syringe right below surface (1cm). Should I try to take sample for testing from deeper parts?

regards,
markis

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

Well, you can bet there is differences in CO2 levels in different areas and at different scales, the boundary layer issue is very real.

But it's tough for a hobbyist to measure it.

The CO2 mist hitting the R macrandra will take out the issue of low CO2 and max that one, then EI will max out the nutrients and then it's simply space and light.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[Wet]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

I test my pH with water taken using syringe right below surface (1cm). Should I try to take sample for testing from deeper parts?

Might be interesting to compare dissolved CO2 in high vs low current areas. With mist it is as if CO2 dissolves at the plant, also eliminating the current/circulation issue.

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

That's one arguement that surrounds the mist issue that's hard to tease apart.

14C cannot answer that one, because there are few (if any) ways to discriminate between the gas [g] and the dissolved [aq] form that gets to the plant.

The only way I can come up with that most of us have is indirect, O2 production.

That has issues but can be overcome with a few replicates and controls.
Problem is many aquarist cannot make a control or are unwilling to for the sake of such questions.

So if it's hard to prove to the hobbyist, they often will not believe it.
But observations and looking at the plant growth/health are possible, so are good O2 measurements.

I'm not big on the belief system for growing plants.

Regards,
Tom Barr

 

[VaughnH]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

Faith Based Aquaculture? FBA, for short? Unfortunately, most of us have to start there and only gradually move towards Reality Based Aquaculture (RBA). We trust you - faith - so we take your experimental results as the gospel. That you have been proven to be right so many times just reinforces the faith.

 

[Tom Barr]

Re: Tom please help. I am losing my mind!

I'm not sure about most things, but what I do know ...I know.

1. I know based on observations that the CO2 mist definitely kicks growth into high gear.
2. I know plants pearl visibly better
3. I know plants bearest the entry point for ther CO2 reactor, mist disc etc always pearl sooner/better/faster than anywhere else in the tank
4. I know good CO2 and good pearling are highly correlated.
5. I know a gas diffuses much faster than a liquid
6. I the gas is much higher concentration than dissolved ppm of CO2
7. I know lower KH's make CO2 less souble(which maybe a good reason why some plant do better in softer water).
8. I know I can take a tank with and without mist and have similar dissolved ppms and have more pearling and growth and higher O2 levels with the mist.
9. Other folks that have tried it generally, not always, have excellent results and often complain of high growth rates of the plants, generally never having seem such growth and pearling prior.
10. I know I'll have issues with teasing apart the gas vs dissolve phases and relative %, except via O2 ppms.

Tank 1 will have the same CO2 ppm.
Tank 2 will have the same CO2ppm and mist as well.

Actually, having the same tank would be better and doing the tank for a week with and a week without and having the same relative plant biomass for each trial. The flow characteristics and plant species would be the same, filter, and other general biological patterns.

If you did this a few times, this would give an estimation due to the mist gas phase in terms of a O2 ppm difference.

Also, hours above 100% stauratuion of O2 ppm would also be usefulm rather than merely max ppm of O2 for the day.

So a nice graph throughoput the 24 hour cycle, week cycle etc for the O2, CO2 ppm(with/without mist).

So 3 lines in the graph for a 24 hour period, and perhaps a 48, 72 hour time and a week and see what occurs.

I can predict based on my expectations of the graphs patterns right now.
This figure is how you would setg an experiment and design and paper/research project, think about what you expect and what would answer your question with the tools you have available.

I'll do it some day, not sure when, probably after I move again.
Still need to run some gas samples down to the the lab to analyze them also.
I'm less sure about those than the mist effect.

Still, do not trust people too much. Ask for support and see what you can dig up and ways to answer the question/s. Throwing tomatoes at an idea is fine, if you have good aim


If not, at least have fun.

Regards,
Tom Barr