Philosophos

Looks like your medium tank needs more CO2, and a higher flow rate if what I'm seeing there is BGA as well. Low NO3 or high pH can additionally contribute, depending on who you talk to.

Your NPT looks rather yellow... is this just bulb spectrum or NO3 deficiency? Again, CO2 is far too low with BBA growing like that.

Crank up the CO2, and figure out your target nutrient levels, plus a way to reach them. Do it through ferts, switch to a rich substrate, what ever works. Find an established method, or at least scientifically valid goals, and a way to reach them.

At one point I was chasing nutrients around too; using symptoms to address deficiencies. until I switched to a good working model, keeping plants alive was a frustration. Now that I've got a base line to start from, experimenting with ferts to find my own preference is quite easy because of the reduced variables. If something changes, it's usually because I changed it, so a fair part of what happens after is an indication of how the tank is reacting to what I've done, rather than whatever nutrient happens to be running out that I don't have under control. I think just about anyone with success in any method could tell you similar stories.

-Philosophos

brenmuk

In your NPT what kind of substrate do you have? From the picture it sorta looks like gravel only - is there soil under the gravel? I note you don't use a filter in this tank but do you have anything for water circulation?

Supercoley1

The narrow fern is one of the easiest to grow. Pretty fast grower. I use it quite a lot There is also some Philippine on the left here.


I wouldn't bother shading them. There is no shade for mine anywhere in the tank and they go from bare to as you see within 6 months.

Key is the lighting. I wouldn't increase lights while you are struggling. I would reduce them. Either less wattage used (1.5-2WPG) for the 9 hours and/or cut the photoperiod down to 6 hours.

This will slow things down (including the algae) and put less pressure on the CO2, circulation and nutrients. Maybe try removing the 'siesta' under this lower lighting and see if things improve. If they do then you have found that the CO2/nutrients were not up to the job. You can then gradually increase the lighting again and increase CO2/nutrients to match. You will maybe find a happy medium eventually.

Not overly sure on the colour of the water in your NPT. Mine is pretty young (1½months old) and is still pretty clear but it does have 20x filtration on it.

AC

totziens

NPT:
The yellowish NPT s due to yellowish bulb spectrum and the soil was stirred up a bit in the past few month as I kept planting new plants and replanting those floating ones. I have stopped planting and re-planting lately. I have also stopped changing the water for the past 11 days because I was busy with my broken medium tech tank. Usually I do weekly water changes of 50%. I use top soil and Holland sand. You can't see any of the soil because I purposely hide them with Holland sand (I surrounded the tank with sand to hide the soil from being viewed through the glass). There's no filter or any circulation because I have run out of power socket in my power extension.

Medium tech tank:
No, there's no BGA in this tank at all. What you see is probably green spot algae. Sorry that it's not that clear in the photos. Now, I am confused again because initially I have been told to increase the light, now someone is suggesting that I decrease it. This is what I mean by conflict of suggestion - I have encountered it many times when trying to solve this issue. Anyway, I have been setting 6 and 8 hours of lighting in the past - it didn't solve my problem. Now I have increased it to 10 hours 3 days ago I think and 12 hours (started just 1-2 days ago). Of course, I have yet to see any result as of now. Supercoley1, the look of your tank is what I expect out of my narrow leaf ferns but I have horrible looking ones. They all looked like the ones in your tank when I got them from my friend. A few months later, what you see is what I have today.

Supercoley1

I thought water changes weren't done on NPT? I haven't done any on mine for the first 6 weeks.

On the lighting issue the thinking behind the suggestion is this:

If you have algae in the tank then there is an inbalance somewhere, namely a defficiency. The longer the lights are on then the longer the algae gets to grow.

This is why you see much less algae in low light tanks. Not necessarily because they have everythin balanced but because the lower light slows the algae (and plants) growth down. It can be easier to 'dial in' the nutrients and CO2.

By increasing the lights more I am not saying the Fern won't pick up but if 9 hours ain't working then I don't expect an increase to improve things. However if there is algae of any sort I would expect an increase in algae. Maybe even some newer types appearing!!!

AC

totziens

I remember pretty well that Diana advised me to change the water during the first few months but I think I will stick with that forever because my NPT is overloaded with too many fishes and the greedy Platies generate a lot of poo in the tank (aka fertiliser..haha)

Supercoley1, thanks for your explanation about the light. I have the same understanding as you too but it didn't solve the issue when I tried it. So, I am trying to increase it this time. I am willing to take whatever risk to get the problem fixed. If it fails, I will look for another alternative. Just curious, do you ever see your ferns pearling? I have never seen any from my ferns except for one tank with ADA florescent (this is the only tank I can keep ferns but not necessarily exceptionally well...at least no green spot algae and the leaves are healthy). The rest of my plants pearl quite easily in my medium tech tank. As for NPT, I have not seen any plant pearls before. I ask about pearling because I am trying to find out whether none pearling ferns is a bad sign.

brenmuk

For your NPT I would
1) Prune about 1/2 to 1/3 of the plants - I find this encourages healthy growth
2) Reduce to 1 or 2 50% Water changes per year - top up any water evaporation with rain water if possible - this will stop unnecessary removal of nutrients that the plants require and save you having to add extra ferts. Don't worry about fish waste the more the better your plants will lap it up and you effectively remove excessive waste/toxins etc by pruning.
3) Power sockets permitting I would introduce some form of gentle water circulation.

It can be frustrating when you get conflicting advice for other enthusiasts (its always well meaning) the only thing I can say is that if you want an easy life with a planted tank then follow a tried and tested method - i try to follow Diana Walstads advice as far as I can for my NPT.

I agree with Supercoley1 about excessive light causing algae issues to appear sooner ie the amount of light and plant mass dictates nutrient demand but I have also read that the full photo period of 10 -12 hours light is physiologically important to plants and you should try to get sunlight into your tank for some/all of the day. You might want to have your lights set up so that they are on for the full photoperiod but only at their most intense for a few hours in the middle of the photoperiod. This is what I do and it works quite well for me with 2 tubes.

Supercoley1

Do my needle ferns pearl? Her's my answer


That is under only 0.9WPG T5HO. Low light according to the majority consensus . However the CO2 is at 30ppm with 17.6x turnover circulation.

I wouldn't worry too much about pearling. It is a little overplayed in the hobby. Yes it means that the plants are producing oxygen but no pearling does not mean they are not producing oxygen.

Pearling occurs when the water is saturate with O and therefore cannot take any more into solution (sort of like diffusion) and it forms as bubbles instead.

If your water is not saturated then the O produced goes into solution and you don't see it. You can see this in most tanks where they start to pearl some way into the photoperiod. The O was going into solution for a while and then once saturated the pearling starts. Tanks with high surface turbulence may pearl earlier due to there being more O being brought in

A similar argument to people saying that one of the reasons reactors that dissolve all the CO2 are better than disc diffusers is that the bubbles rise to the surface and gas off. They don't question what happens with the CO2 in solution from the reactor. It still gasses off although they can't see the process happenning!!

So in summary pearling is a 'side effect' of photosynthesis. No pearling does not really mean the plants aren't photosynthesising. Just means they are not producing more O than the water is able to take.

On the photoperiod side of things I run both mine at 9 hours although the NPT Nano is full 9 hours where the Hi-tec 125Ltr is staggered to increase ½ hourly and has the full light for the central 4 hours.

They are both positioned to be out of all direct sunlight.

AC

Philosophos

Pearling is a worthwhile consideration for the health of the fish. Highly oxygenated water will make for far happier fauna, so it's still a worth while pursuit.

I'm honestly not sure why one would bother to arbitrarily copy everything that nature does without careful examination. Pushing higher photo periods without accounting for intensity is kind of a bad idea given that plants are limited by their chemical respiration and nutrient fixation processes.

Not changing the water, as you've found, can be another issue. It's more difficult to avoid changing the water for long periods of time if anything is out of balance. Even nature sees water changes; many of the plants we keep are from rivers.

-Philosophos

Zapins

Supercoley1 - that was a very good explanation of why plants pearl. In the past I have often wondered why my tanks sometimes pearl and other times don't no matter how much CO2 I put in the tank and how healthy the plants are but now it makes much more sense. Its not too often really good explanations like this show up on the forum, keep it up!

Currently my tank is almost all anubias and slow growing plants with a lot of guppies (40-50) and I only sometimes see pearling, much less then when I had all stem plants and no fish to use up the O2.

Its too bad we don't have reputation points like we used to. If we did you'd have my vote