thanks Tom,

a bit wiser again Although I do not see any stress from the fish and shrimps I think I will lower the CO2 concentration a bit for the health of my living critters. (drop checker a bit light green, instead of yellow)

I indeed really see a difference since I refresh the water 2x a week. In general I am very happy with result. But of course, if everthing goes well, you want now that hard to grow plant flourish. In this stage I don't have much algae, all plants (exept the tonina and the rotala) are growing great! But am I really really happy? hmmm, I think not, that damn tonina and rotala!

But I think I will entering round 2 in the battle. My KH is about 4. I will lower it to 2 and see what the result is. For the beginning, I will not add any Ca or Mg. Which means that I have a Mg level of 1.8 mg/l and Ca of 13 mg/l. Maybe this is too little for some of the other plants, but that's their problem

and of course i will move the plants to the left in order too get more mist at the leaves.

Maybe I will buy a bag of ADA AS and put it a cup for the tonina/rotala only. but that's for the future....

greets,

yme

You sound like you are progressively wiser and at your own pace.
While 2x a week might seen a lot for many folks, the benefits are worth while if you want to change the dynamics and get a tank into good shape.

It takes extra effort to re set any tank after a disturbance or a reduction in ecosystem function.

This is very true for Restoration management of ecosystems.

Ecosystem resiliency requires "a hump" to get over to move from one state to another. The larger the hump, the harder it is to move from one state to the other.

What I try and do when helping folks is to address that by reducing the hump and giving you many littler hammers to beat the algae/plant issues and provide a stable routines/system so the perturbing the new healthy state is very hard.

This gives a lot more resiliency to your method as a result.
All methods have various management methods that can improve this resiliency.
Some call resiliency "tank balance" or "stability".

regards,
Tom Barr

Hi Tom et al.,

Let’s summarize what I’ve done so far in order to get a nice planted tank with rotala wallichii and tonina. Ferts are given according to EI, with some changes: 2x more NO3 than EI suggests and more micro’s than EI suggests (1.5xEI). Water changes are performed 2x a week.

-I lowered the KH to 2.5-3 by using now 70% osmosis water. I added CaCl2 back in order to keep the GH unchanged (= 7). This resulted in healthy growth of the tonina. New sprouts are formed and the plant is looking very nice. The rotala improved a bit as well, but still looks ratty.

As I mentioned before, at a pH of 5.67 the fish are gasping at the surface. I have a pH of 5.90 and a yellow/light green dropchecker. According to Tom a fair amount of CO2.

But the rotala still looks ratty… The next thing I’ll try is to lower my lights, I have 9 hours 2.5 watts/gallon and 1 hour 3.75 watts/gallon. I think I’ll remove the one-hour light peak. Apart from the rotala issue, I would like to have a slower growth in general. After one week not trimming, the tank looks like a jungle, without any nice recognisable scaping. Maybe I have just a bit too much light in my tank. Cutting it down will maybe result in a healthier rotala?? (at least, that is my hypothesis.)

Last week I noticed some algae in my tank. I don’t think it is spyrogira. But have no clue what it could be…However,I made a picture:



I pruned it away. Are otocinclus sp. any help in addition to the manual removal and the cherry shrimps?

In general: I am very happy that I am now able to grow the tonina (at least for 3 weeks)!! I’ll try to work on the rotala, but I have a feeling that this weed is not that easy.

Tank before weekly pruning:



Tank after weekly pruning:



Thanks!


yme

I think the slower growth will help.
Some plants will need trimming often still.

I think if you place the wallichii near the current, it will do better.
Also, you might try topping instead of uprooting for trim methods. Do not uproot and trim every week most of a tank. That can be an issue.

Is the Rotala in the ADA AS as well?

Watch the tank some, see how each plant grows and try and prune it so it gets enough light and the others do not crowd it out.

Look at some of the NBAT tanks also, all those plant species tend to be much easier to tend. I have had issues with some species here and there, but I no longer have any with any species using ADA AS, + EI+ CO2 mist.
The CO2 mist pointed right on problem plants with a slight current is ideal.

Sand, Flourite, onyx also had similar results, but I could neglect things more with the ADA AS.



Regards,
Tom Barr

hi tom,

I have no ADA AS , just plain gravel with some red clay.
Do you see the holes on the left side of the tank? That's where the CO2 mist is coming from. The rotala is right in front of it. I have to say that is a quite strong current..

thanks,

yme

hi!
I again had to top my wallichii, because it was stretching and ratty, reaching the surface. When trying to plant them again I uprooted some of the old stems. I was very surprized: almost no roots! Likely a reason for this plant to behave this way? I know, I have plain gravel, but I added frozen cubes of red clay at their roots. And still: no roots! there must be a correlation!

greets,

yme

R wallichii is very "rooty", you should see lots of roots, if not, something is very wrong in the tank. Plants are not growing.

Some roots vs lots is one thing, but no roots suggest something wrong.

Regards,
Tom Barr

hi Tom,

I was afraid so....
In general, I think the root development is indeed far from optimal. As fas as I have seen only the blyxa has a very huge rootsystem. The other plants have moderate roots. Of course, the uprooting and etc results indamaging a dn removal of roots, but when I now look at it, I think it is indeed not oke.

The gravel is just 3 months old. As well as the red clay. Maybe something intrinsic to this substrate? I don't know. All I know is that I dose approximately EI and that the tonina is becoming a weed . So, most likely, all the plants are mainly feeding from the watercolumn instead of from the gravel.

Anyway, I think I can blame the gravel, but I won't change anything (or do you have a special secret Tom Barr tip?). If everything is correct the new tank with ADA AS will be running this summer.

greets,

yme

Well, then hang in there until you get the ADA As in there.

I think nutrient wise, you are not going to do better than a basic light EI and ADA AS.

Both locations for nutrients are addressed well, so the rest is just CO2/lighting and perhaps the tap water/your pruning/filter cleaning etc.

I deep vacuum substrates every year or so, sometimes every 6 months if they are dirty etc.

ADA included.

Regards,
Tom Barr

hi all,

I ordered today some tonina belem and eriocaulon setaceum. not because I don't have enough plants but just to see whether I can grow these plants using my current conditions and possibly make an comparison with the growth in my new future tank with ADA AS. Just curious whether ADA AS indeed makes a difference

Furthermore, I my current tank the green thread algae is a bit expanding too much in my opinion. I think it is a microspora species (see picture a few posts earlier). I remove as much as possible, but it is a pain. Will otocinclus be any good in dealing this algae?

greets,

yme