MrSanders

Well all of the plants I was expecting came in yesterday. Tonina sp. 'Belem', Mayaca fluviatilis, Heteranthera zosterifolia, Pogostemon stellatus.... also got some more A. nana to fill the left side as I wanted too.

There are a lot of different sp.'s and im not really sure that I like that so much. For now they will all stay because i need them to keep the tank filled, but I would also like to see how it looks as they grow in. I think I will most likely end up only using a few of the stem plants though, and having similar grouping on each side of the tank.

I also starting dosing lightly.... it appeares that even though there wasn't a whole lot of plant mass in there, the tank sucked through the 2ppm of phosphate I had added in just a few days. Right now im adding 5mls of TPN, 1.1ppm N, 1.3 ppm K, and .4 ppm P daily.... going to just stick with that for a while and see how things go from there.

I'll post some pics early next week once things start to fill in a bit.

MrSanders

This has to possibly be the most frustrating hobby in the world... But then again any hobby where problems pop up and can not be fixed over the span of a year is bound to drive the hobbiest off.....

ALL of my stem plants are just slowly melting away..... a few days ago I bumped all the macros up.... 3.3ppm N, .8ppm P, and around 4ppm K daily. Really getting the feeling That I pretty much shouldn't have waisted my time and money redoing this tank.... or doing any tank for that matter... seems like whateve I dose, or dont dose.... they all look lik hell....

Keeping my fingers crossed for now...

MrSanders

Anyone have any advice on how to treat this tank? I have heard all of these good increadble things about AS... how it grows plants like gang busters, and how many dont even need to dose when the first set up thier tanks, yadda yadda yadda....


Well I have to be honest my impression of it isn't all to high... With all of these things I have heard I figured even with a semi decent water colum fert routine, that in at the start it would support good strong growth out of the gate...... I have set up a Nano tank, and now this current tank.... and in both plants just melt away to mush right from the get go..... The Nano has been set up for many weeks..... seems like it doesnt matter what I add as far as ferts go, nothing grows.

I have an uneasy feeling about this new set up, im seeing the exact same trend starting....

Anyone have any ideas? I'm not new to this.... but I have been stumed for close to a year as to why i can no longer grow plants, I thought a good substrate, would give me a good foundation to start over with..... apreantly I maybe should have just found a whole other hobby


Arrrhhhhh

ed seeley

I really wish I could offer some words to help you!

You sound very frustrated with things as they are. I would say leave it alone and wait, but it sounds like you've been battling for a year so that's not good enough really is it!!!

The only thing i might say is maybe lay off the ferts for a while. If the plants have just gone in they might not be using too much anyway? And if they're melting a lot of their nutrients will be going back into the water and being processed by the filter.
Have you checked pH and other parameters? If your tank water is vastly different from that the plants were in before they might be suffering a bit of shock from the change.
If you're using some substrates they will lower the pH fairly dramatically.

I'd check the water tests, change half the water and syphon out as much dead material as possible and lay off the ferts for a while.
Others may totally disagree with this of course!!!!

Kelley

Do you use tap water or RO water? If you use tap water, a re you reconstituting it with anything?

MrSanders

Thanks guys..... Ed, thats basically what I was doing from the start.... the first week I didnt dose anything except a bit of Seachem Eq. for K, I figured the other elements it provided wouldnt hurt. I did this thinking as many have said that the AS would be more than rich enough to support plant growth. Well things just melted right from the start.... the first batch of Blyxa I planted totally melted to nothing in 2 days. I replanted some more and it didnt really do anything so I figured it was safe to pack the tank with plants.

Thats what I did, tons of stem plants.... the same thing happened nearly 90 of what I put in melted away within a few days.... what stems did manage to hang on havn't grown at all in the past week.

Some anubias and crypts have put out a new leaf or two.... On all of them they are yellow and sickly looking. Not white, or light green, but a very yellow color, some of which being slightly deformed.

CO2 was being dumped in hardcore, but In the past two days I have cut back, just using enough to keep the drop checked green, rather than yellow..... I dont really see the point of dumping loads of CO2 if the plants arnt growing. Tropica plant nutrition has been dosed at 5ml a day 7x a week.

Kelley: I use tap water in all of my tanks, I can not store, nor want to use RO water. I dont reconstitute with anything.... thats seems sort of un-needed.... I havn't taken anything out so what would I need to reconstitute? I have a GH of around 5 degrees, a KH of 2 or so from the Tap. Water quality report claims 5.1 ppm Mg, along with 27.1 ppm Ca... TDS 190

I dont really test my tank water, It has proved to really be of no help in fixing problems in the past. Only thing testing has ever done for me is give me a number to talk of.... Once the tank was set up again I did test once or twice... Basically my tank water is usually some where around a TDS of 260-290, depending on how heavy Im using the ferts, PH around 5.9, KH and GH are just about the same as the tap water.


Again let me add I set up a 1g Nano tank with AS.... Its been running for probably a good month and a half. Weither I dose or not.... I have seen no growth out of this tank either.... Plants either melt away, or they simply sit there and do not grow.... Anyone have ideas?

Other possible points of Intrest from water quality report since lately even in non CO2 tanks my plants have stopped growing, became stunted, and other wise have failed to thrive.... (thought I have actually grow some decent plants in the past)

Chloride - 82ppm
Sodium - 50ppm

Kelley

MrSanders, I am not suggesting you use RO water, I just wondered if you were.

Good luck with your tank. It's so frustrating!

ed seeley

What about tests for ammonia, nitrite or nitrate???

You say pH is 5.9. I would think this is significantly lower than where you got your plants from. I'm not suggesting this is the whole story, but it may be a factor. You seem to have great tap water (If I had tap water like that, I wouldn't use RO. Seems great, well for a soft water tank anyway!!!) and think with ADA substrate pH/hardness may plummet. Could this be the problem? Plants, like fish will suffer if there's a big change in parameters, as I'm sure you know.

From what you say about problems with growth in all your tanks, I think there might be something else going on here! Or maybe ADA with low KH is the problem?

Maybe get a detailed tap water analysis from your water company? You never know what they might say?

MrSanders

I have a detailed tap water analysis from my water company, it is a good year old though... its three pages long, with most everything not being of concern. I really dont know what most of it is... just off random elements that I have never heard of, though most everything is listed in ug/l which would be in such minute amounts im sure I wouldnt have to worry about. Though the Chloride, and sodium seem sort of high to me? I dont know.....

As far as the Aquasoil and PH/hardness I dont really know.... When this tank was running before PH was down to 5.3 every night before the CO2 shut off..... then again I have always had growth problems so that doesnt mean anything....

I don't really know what to do.... guess i'll just wait and hope things change... I don't know if thats being patient, or stupid.... things never changed in the past.... oh well.

nswhite

Cool it should really look good once everything grows in.