I am trying this with a 3 gallon pico at my office; though I did not wait quite as long before filling it up with water. QUOTE]
I waited 10 weeks, because I didn't want to fool with any tank problems over Christmas holidays. Otherwise, I probably would have added water a couple weeks earlier.
Dry Start Method & Shrimp Tanks
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Such energy and enthusiasm! I envy you. In contrast, I was dreading adding water to the tanks.Hah! Makes good sense. My problem in NOT waiting 10 weeks was that I'm like a little kid staring at Christmas presents under the tree several weeks before Christmas and simply can't wait any longer. Ahhhhhh!!!!
Philosophos, I'm not sure why you would want to decrease lighting levels during the emergent phase. Emergent plants can use all the light you can give them (my book, p. 146). Once plants are submerged, you can decrease light levels. However, I didn't. I just added floating plants and they automatically decreased light intensity.
Thanks for your comments.
I measured CO2 uptake in my DSM tanks versus the 1-gal bowls. Attached is the figure with measurements.
CO2 uptake was very little for the DSM tanks (red lines) in comparison to the shrimp bowls (green lines). The main difference between these tanks is the plant species. The shrimp bowls have robust submerged growers (Sagittaria subulata, etc) and the DSM tanks have only carpet plants. I predict that if carpet plants were in the bowls competing with S. subulata, they probably wouldn't survive.
I believe that HC and other carpet plants just aren't very competitive with other plants for taking up CO2. They don't seem to need that much CO2, as they seem to be doing fine with just 7-8 mg/l (see graph).
When you give them a good start (DSM) and then keep them by themselves as I have done, they do very well (they're currently thriving in both DSM tanks).
I measured CO2 uptake in my DSM tanks versus the 1-gal bowls. Attached is the figure with measurements.
CO2 uptake was very little for the DSM tanks (red lines) in comparison to the shrimp bowls (green lines). The main difference between these tanks is the plant species. The shrimp bowls have robust submerged growers (Sagittaria subulata, etc) and the DSM tanks have only carpet plants. I predict that if carpet plants were in the bowls competing with S. subulata, they probably wouldn't survive.
I believe that HC and other carpet plants just aren't very competitive with other plants for taking up CO2. They don't seem to need that much CO2, as they seem to be doing fine with just 7-8 mg/l (see graph).
When you give them a good start (DSM) and then keep them by themselves as I have done, they do very well (they're currently thriving in both DSM tanks).
Attachments
The other rooted plant species that are growing well (but not too well) in the DSM are:
Marsilea quadrifolia
Eleocharis acicularis
Hemianthus micranthemoides (Baby Tears, a bigger version of HC)
I think that HC and these plants take up so little CO2 (from the CO2 pool available) that you could add other slow-growers. Just make sure to keep the plants in check.
On that note, I'm not sure how to prune these plants. I've been just pulling them out. The Eleocharis acicularis (dwarf hairgrass) is threatening to take over one tank. As I discussed in my book (p. 45), this genera actively secretes allelochemicals into the substrate to inhibit other plants. I don't trust it.
Marsilea quadrifolia
Eleocharis acicularis
Hemianthus micranthemoides (Baby Tears, a bigger version of HC)
I think that HC and these plants take up so little CO2 (from the CO2 pool available) that you could add other slow-growers. Just make sure to keep the plants in check.
On that note, I'm not sure how to prune these plants. I've been just pulling them out. The Eleocharis acicularis (dwarf hairgrass) is threatening to take over one tank. As I discussed in my book (p. 45), this genera actively secretes allelochemicals into the substrate to inhibit other plants. I don't trust it.
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