[gnome]

Hi, All.

I'm having several problems with my newly set-up 4-gallon 'long.' The indicator plant I'm using is L. sp. 'Pantanal' that I've had for a little over a week. It was doing really great for the first week, but now it's doing the same thing that all of my other Ludwigias and Rotalas do: curling back the leaves and getting stunted, crumpled tips. It happened very suddenly, too. So I did some testing and tweaked accordingly - brought up GH using a very tiny bit of epsom salt and mostly gypsum (CaSO4). Now it's up to 10 degrees (oops!). Then I discovered that the KH was <1 so I brought it up using primarily potassium bicarbonate and a little baking soda. Now it's up to 4 degrees. The pH was exactly where I wanted it - 6.8 - until, of course, I brought up the KH. Now it's around 7.6 (it's normally 8.0 or above straight out of the tap). Last night I also switched from "bell diffusion" to directing the bubbles into the filter intake. It did absolutely nothing. The bubbles are going up the intake tube and being jostled around, eventually getting pulled into the impeller and getting broken up. But I cannot get the darn CO2 level past like 3 ppm! I'm NOT going to get a pressurized system for a 4-gallon tank, though.

As for ferts, I'm following Tom Barr's suggested dosing regimen. However, since he uses KH2PO4 and I use Flourish Phosphorus for phosphorus, I may have messed up on this part. I used the calculation on the bottle for a target level of 0.5 ppm. Is this too high?

Anyway, I'm all out of ideas of how to get the pH down and CO2 up.

Has anybody ever tried adding acetic acid (vinegar) to lower the pH? I believe that our water treatment plant adds NaOH to bring up the pH so as to avoid corrosion in the pipes. They also leave the water really soft to minimize calcareous buildup. But I suppose acetate is actually a buffer that would make it so that you can't use the pH-KH-CO2 relationship to measure CO2. Maybe diluted H2CO3, HNO3 or H3PO4 would actually be more "practical" since the plants could actually use the conjugate bases as nutrients... I do still have friends who work in labs . I thought those pH-lowering chemicals were typically H3PO4, anyway. Just need something to neutralize the OH-. Any suggestions? would this be a terrible idea?

The 'Pantanal' was SO beautiful when I bought it. I thought it was doing pretty well for a week, although the color was definitely not as intense. Then it did the crumpled-tip thing that ALL of my red plants end up doing. I'm at my wits' end. Last night I was ready to rip out the stems and throw them into the toaster over. They mock me. They want me to fail, and to fail slowly and excruciatingly... GRRRRR :evil: .

Please help me .

-Naomi

P.S. - 100% Flourite, no heater, 14W N-O fluorescent light. Thanks.

 

[gnome]

Naomi,
CO2, CO2 and CO2.

These are not difficult plants if they have enough CO2/ferts.

But that's my problem... It seems that no matter how hard I try, I cannot get that CO2 dissolved into the water. The only way I see it happening is to have 10 DIY CO2 bottles bubbling into 10 overturned bottle caps. Since the one only gets me up to 3 ppm, I imagine I'd need about 10 to raise it up to the desired 30 ppm. Maybe if I turn off the filter to completely stop water movement that would help to keep the CO2 in the water. I could try that, but I thought that keeping this tank unheated would sort of offset the CO2 loss from water current.

Since having the CO2 bubble into the intake wasn't helping, I went back to the bottle cap bell diffuser. I'll set up one more bottle and see if running two helps at all. Thanks. If I see *any* pearling whatsoever from *any* of the plants in this tank, I'll post a happy update. Don't anybody hold your breath :roll: .

-Naomi

 

[gnome]

Thanks for the suggestions... I've already thrown together another mix, which I'm hoping will be bubbling away by tomorrow. The problem with having the CO2 bubbling into my filter intake was that unless I have it on full-flow, the bubbles would sort of collect at the flow control knob and the impeller wouldn't be able to break them up immediately. It had to pull pieces off of the one, big collective bubble (if you could picture that). I don't want it at full-flow, either.

I'm thinking of having the outlet bypass all of this and lead the tubing (from the overflow side) right to the impeller. Only thing is, this is going to require much smaller tubing (diameter-wise), which I plan to look for at Home Depot, tomorrow. This may also back-fire and lead to stray bubbles getting trapped *in* the apex of the intake tube.

Bill, thanks for the offer of the Excel. I've actually been supplementing with it in all of my planted tanks but it's doing no apparent good. I'll let you know later if I'll take you up on the offer. Congrats on going pressurized . I'm sure it'll make your life MUCH easier!

-Naomi

P.S. - Tom, those tanks are SO awesome! The lights are 7W or 13?Your "neglected" tanks look 100x better than my "fussed over" tanks.

 

[gnome]

Bah!!! You got me, there, cS! :lol:

I rarely take my own advice. But going pressurized for a 4-gallon tank? Hmmm... If I can't get DIY to work on such a tiny tank, I'm doing something else wrong. I think the yeast I'm using has gone stale. The little yeast bits are not dissolving completely, and it generally takes at least 48 hours to get any appreciable bubbling.

-N

 

[gnome]

Okay - at the risk of sounding like a culinary idiot... When you "proof" yeast, is it supposed to fizzle and froth right away (I know to use warm water) or within a few minutes, or what? And are you supposed to proof it in warm sugar water or without sugar?

I just realized that I've been storing it improperly. See what happens when you don't pay attention to Mom's kitchen habits?

-Naomi

 

[gnome]

Okay - I wouldn't go as far as calling it "pearling" but some of the plants in there that have never produced so much as a bubble are now releasing like one teeny-tiny bubble per thirty seconds or so. All I did was to turn off the filter. Maybe it was causing too much water circulation that the CO2 was getting driven off. Since I turned it off a few hours ago, I've seen my plants actually burp out a few bubbles. I'll leave it off for a few days (except for a few minutes each day when I add the nutrients) and see if there's any noticeable difference in growth. Come to think of it, I had the best growth out of my 2.5-gallon when I had zero water movement (aside from fish swimming around and maybe mild heat convection). Maybe there was more to having no filter than I thought.

Naomi,
Repeat after me...the Food Network is your friend

Proofing the yeast simply means to get it started in a small bowl with a pinch of sugar and some warm water. In a few minutes it should start to foam. It doesn't have to look like a beer head, but you should see a thin layer of foam developing. At that point you know that the yeast is still alive and can be added to the bottle.

Thanks, Bill. From the sounds of it, my yeast can no longer be proven beyond a reasonable doubt . I'll have to let it go.

As for the Food Network, watching that stuff makes me hungry. Maybe if my husband and son weren't such culinary wusses it would be worth my while to try cooking new foods. California rolls are about the extent of my husband's experimental nature. Ketchup and non-chunky pasta sauce are the only forms of tomato that my son will consume. Meanwhile, I'm here craving sashimi and natto (something that even disgusts most Japanese). Ain't life funny...? :lol:

-Naomi

 

[gnome]

Your Lysimachia, which is fairly difficult, was grown with very clean lower leaves,

Oh, I wish this were true... I trimmed off the lower [naked] half of each stem before I bagged them for you.

your Hemianthus was rich green with well spaced leaf nodes and your erect moss was healthy and free of any hair algae.

The Hemianthus is the *only* plant I can grow decently, and the lack of algae was thanks to my Amano shrimp, which I have since moved to a different tank so I could increase the Flourish dosing. If I took a photo of that 10-gallon right now, you'd be shocked at how much algae I've grown in there.

This heirachy is: light, carbon, nitrogen, phosphate, pottasium, calcium, magnesium and iron. Light levels are usually fixed by hardware choices and everything else follows availibility of this primary nutrient.

Interesting... I've been thinking that iron preceded Ca and Mg. I'll have to pay more attention to these, then.

Matching species with similar nutritional needs seems to be neccesary when one gardens in lean or limited conditions. You might find that limiting your species selection could improve success rates at current CO2 enrichment levels. Basic idea is to remove the strongest competitors to give the weaker ones improved chances to succeed.

Very interesting that you mention this... A few years ago, I had great luck growing M. umbrosum in a 2.5-gallon tank with Flourite. I'd figured out the best way to propagate it and the stuff was growing out of my ears. But then it happened - I acquired some L. nummularia 'aurea' and I planted it *right* next to the umbrosum (sort of stupid artistically, since they're so similar in form). Up to this point, the umbrosum was somewhat isolated from the other plants in the tank and I guess it liked having its own space. Suddenly, the umbrosum was growing out stunted leaves and looking quite pathetic in every possible way. At the time, however, I was looking for any excuse to get rid of it all, so I didn't care that it was languishing. But I'm sure that M. umbrosum is a relatively weak competitor for nutrients. You've reminded me that mere proximity could trigger the demise of a delicate species, especially when the water column is being run lean and survival is more dependent on what can be extracted via root system. And it just hit me that the 'Pantanal' is planted right next to the L. nummularia 'aurea'... I'll let them duke it out for now and see what happens . Neither of them seems to be coming out the winner.

In the April-June issue of TAG there is a column titled, "Heiber and Brewer - Stranded on the List: threads of special interest from the aquatic plants digest email list" in this particular issue they summarize some DIY yeast reactor threads. They claim that problems with brewing are often central to general problems with DIY CO2. At the end of the summary they highlight Tarah Nyberg's recipe. Perhaps her recipe could improve your results.

Drat! I let my AGA membership run out so I haven't been getting TAG. I'll search by keyword through the APD and theKrib to see if I can't find the recipe.

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I wish half of the stuff you thought about my plants and tanks were true ... I'll keep plugging away. Right now in my 4-gallon, I have a stand of golden lloydiella, some L. sp. 'Pantanal', Hottonia palustris, M. umbrosum, and five pieces of glosso. I'll leave it at that for now (no promises ) and see how they fare. If they all survive, I'll have varying shades of green and a bit of red (hopefully) from the 'Pantanal.' I'm sure I'll have more to report when I see you in two weeks.

Thanks again!

-Naomi

 

[gnome]

Thanks a million, Bill!

-N

 

[gnome]

I haven't yet tried the new DIY CO2 recipe, but I thought I'd update... I've basically stopped running the filter. I only have it on for a few minutes every day to homogenize the water when I add the ferts. I've also stopped "calculating" the CO2 level and rely only on my observations. My plants are pearling, now! Not like constant streams of bubbles, but with my Hottonia, every few minutes, it burps out a thin stream for a few seconds, then again a few minutes later. My M. umbrosum releases a small bubble every few seconds. Both of these are looking very good and putting out new, healthy growth. The L. sp. 'Pantanal' is not magnificent-looking, but it's retaining the lower leaves and is growing. I suspect it's probably having problems due to alkaline water. The L. nummularia 'aurea' is okay, but has resumed the loss of lower leaves. It's no worse off than when it was in the 10-gallon.

I planted four tiny pieces of glosso, and they've already put out daughter plants. I think I'll move the rest of my Hottonia (from my 2.5-gallon) into this tank.

Maybe I'll be able to put up a photo in a couple of weeks.

-Naomi

 

[gnome]

NOW, I have major pearling from my Hottonia palustris! Woo-hoo! \/

-Naomi