[aquaticscapes]

My hobbyist friend told me about this list and said I should join. I was a member of Art's old list however missed this list when it came out. I am a commercial grower of aquarium plants and offer them to the public as well as wholesalers. My intention here is not to sell plants, but to offer my sometimes questionable wisdom and expertise for those that are struggling with either individual species or overall conditions in their planted tanks. I hope to learn a few new things in the process as well. Our site is all about educating the customer to have a successful experience. I do aquascaping on the side for select customers, and I really enjoy that aspect of aquarium plants the most. My time is limited due to being overworked and underpaid (he he) but I will attempt to help as well as learn as much as I can.

 

[aquaticscapes]

Thanks!

Wow, that was a fast welcome, next to doing, I like to discuss and learn. I am somewhat of a research nut! My hobbyiest friend just started growing emersed plants, now there is one area I would like to spend more time on. The more scientific (taken with a grain of salt) aspects of dosing to control algae is another. All questions are welcome!

 

[aquaticscapes]

Thanks!

Thank you Kevin and Jay, Jay is the friend I was talking about. He grows amazing plants, and grows dwarf hairgrass and Madagascar Lace to put me to shame! Amazing underwater green thumb. Thank you again for the warm welcome guys.

 

[aquaticscapes]

Open to the public?

Just give me a days advance notice and you can stop by. No we are not open to the public per say, but quite a few people have been by and picked up plants rather than pay shipping. Always glad to chat with people when time permits.

 

[aquaticscapes]

In answer to posts

Actually we do try to convert sword plants to submerged growth from emersed before they are purchased. When customers get these emersed growth swords and the emersed leaves start to disintegrate as new submerged leaves begin to grow if we forget to tell the customer they think they have obtained a bad sword. We recently had a slowdown in growth in our nursery in many tanks. I was somewhat perplexed and so set about to test those tanks for all parameters including GH, KH, PH, nitrate levels, phosphate levels, iron levels etc. What I found astounded me. Nitrate, phosphate and iron levels were all at zero for all of the tanks in question. Potassium levels were low as well. We do individual nutrient dosing with the Botanica line by Kent, as well as the Seachem line in some instances. By dosing those nutrients in the tanks in question growth is again beginning to happen. All of our nusery tanks are heavily planted and so use larger quantities of nutrients than an average planted tank. We just were not giving them enough of those nutrients and so there is a good lesson to be learned. For a guy who doses by sight, I completely missed the boat. Believe me, I have changed my thinking on that and will be testing on a regular basis to optimize growth parameters. I was also surprised at the GH, KH, and PH readings in some of those tanks. PH ranged from 6.0 to 7.5 when we thought we had them equalized due to standardized water change and CO2 practices. We use gas CO2 in most all of our tanks, but a few we use Natural Aquarium Vital, a fairly new product, which is quite a surprise for us as this product produces lush growth, and Seachem's Excel which we have used for years with great results. Some of the tanks we feed CO2 gas directly into the filter, others we use diffusors in. What surprised me was the filter fed tanks surpassed the diffused tanks in terms of CO2 in solution. So bottom line; testing on a fairly regular basis can help head off problems in your aquariums.

For Gnome; yes I remember the auction, hello and glad to see you here!

 

[aquaticscapes]

Nutrient levels

I just wanted to add something to the previous post. My friend Jay told me when he adds phosphate to his aquarium, the following day the phosphate levels read at 0. So plants will "suck it up" fairly fast. We all associate phosphate with algae, but if you know what to add in accordance with your planting density, it can make all the difference in terms of growth. Many statements have been made about fish food and other by-products adding to phosphorus in the aquarium, but I suspect it may very well be the limiting nutrient in many planted tanks. The trick is to maintain a 10-20 to 1 ratio between nitrogen and phosphorus in the water column. My experience is that even with a good feeding, (we maintain fish in all of our planted tanks) phosphorus is quickly used up by the plants. I would caution anyone from simply dumping phosphorus into your aquarium, too much and you will get algae, but try to develop a plan by starting out with minimums and then testing to adjust for your particular planted setup. Balance, balance, balance!

 

[aquaticscapes]

Natural Aquarium Vital

Hello Pisces girl, yes, people have been slamming Marc Weiss for some reason, I do know that the product was tested against gas CO2 at the University of Florida under all other identical conditions and that their results indicated that plant growth was identical in some species and surpassed in others using the NAV. I have replaced some tanks using Excel with Natural Aquarium Vital and plant growth is as good or better depending on the species and this over the last three months. I wouldn't recommend it despite the Florida results without trying it myself first and it appears to work as well as Excel. I have also talked with others that have used it with success, none that haven't had success with it.

Hello Tom, thank you for clearing that up for me, I was always afraid of overdosing and I was clearly underdosing for the amount of plants in each tank. Almost all of the tanks are high light tanks, with less light requiring species growing under the higher light plants, and most tanks are at around 20 - 30 ppm's, and heavily planted. I will try the limiting nutrient from low to high, getting the most out of the nutrients is one goal. I read recently that some fast growing plants will actually increase growth to keep toxic levels of a nutrient from killing them, by growing and diluting the concentration of the nutrient. So if that is the case, then it would stand to reason that slower growing plants like Anubias would expire from those same toxic levels. Of course levels would have to be pretty high like you said.

 

[aquaticscapes]

Addendum to Natural Aquarium Vital

Hello again Pisces girl, I think the reason Marc Weiss was slammed was that there were some products put out by his company that questionable statements were made by the company concerning results to be expected of the particular product used. Unfortunately, some companies are not as careful as they should be in stating expected results in the name of marketing their product. I also believe that you can use a product and not get the desired results and it does not necessarily mean that the product itself does not work. The best way to know is to try the product yourself. For some, bashing a product is the direct result of listening to what someone else has to say about that product without actually trying it themselves under somewhat controlled conditions. In spite of the Florida results I was still somewhat skeptical that it would do as well as Excel and so substituted almost all of the Excel tanks with Natural Aquarium Vital using the same water, water changes, and all other factors being equal as well. Some species of plants in those tanks are actually doing better, whether that can be directly attributed to the Natural Aquarium Vital is still a question in my mind though as I don't believe every variable can be completely controlled. But the bottom line is that the plants are doing as well or better with Natural Aquarium Vital than the Excel.

 

[aquaticscapes]

Reply to Tom

The professor that conducted that study was killed in a car accident, I believe last year. I could find out what his name was. Funny thing about mosses, the "Christmas moss" would not grow using the Excel, but grows very well using the Natural Aquarium Vital.

 

[aquaticscapes]

Hi Don, tell me a think,please: don't you have algae problems with your submerged plants to sell them? I thougt that mantaining the plants emerged was one reason to take on account to give them the better aspect for the market use. Is it? Sorry for my poor knowledge about these questions and also about my english.
Thanks. Maurici.

Hello, I do have a bad habit of dosing by sight and memory, our submerged plants are never sent to customers with algae although we do occasionally have algae outbreaks, usually the result of missing water changes or other factors, we always quarantine those tanks until the problem is resolved. We have started emersed growth trays and as we expand will be growing certain species that way. The idea behind emersed growth is that they have more reserves and are more adaptable to different conditions from one aquarium to the next as stated on Tropica's web site.