[dennis]

Well I certainly don't mean to disagree here but I don't think you problem is Ca. It is possible that bhrada is right that an excess or something is causing a deficiency but I dont think so here. Usually when that happens, the deficient nutrient is already a little low or the ratio of hte two related nutrients is very high. With your Gh of 22 I dont think this is the case. One thing I have heard reciently, although this is mearly hearsay, is the very hard waters can cause uptake problems with Flourish and Fe. You dont say anything of your CO2, NO3 or P levels. What are they?

At least from my experiences with this plant, it does like N and high light. You have the high light. I have had the Sunset with green growth with white veins, which then colored up nicely when I started dosing P and Flourish. Colored up fsat and nice too. How much Trace(Flourish) do you dose? Here is what I was doing when I had this plant: P 1ppm, NO3 10ppm, Flourish 1ml every day(in a 10 gallon tank with 4.5 wpg NO florescent) which I could easily have dosed more of wiht out any problems.

Hope that helps a little. What are the rest of your tank parameters?

 

[dennis]

Well I certainly don't mean to disagree here but I don't think you problem is Ca. It is possible that bhrada is right that an excess or something is causing a deficiency but I dont think so here. Usually when that happens, the deficient nutrient is already a little low or the ratio of hte two related nutrients is very high. With your Gh of 22 I dont think this is the case. One thing I have heard reciently, although this is mearly hearsay, is the very hard waters can cause uptake problems with Flourish and Fe. You dont say anything of your CO2, NO3 or P levels. What are they?

At least from my experiences with this plant, it does like N and high light. You have the high light. I have had the Sunset with green growth with white veins, which then colored up nicely when I started dosing P and Flourish. Colored up fsat and nice too. How much Trace(Flourish) do you dose? Here is what I was doing when I had this plant: P 1ppm, NO3 10ppm, Flourish 1ml every day(in a 10 gallon tank with 4.5 wpg NO florescent) which I could easily have dosed more of wiht out any problems.

Hope that helps a little. What are the rest of your tank parameters?

 

[dennis]

I would not worry about your lighting yet. 2.6 pc over 100 gallons is plenty, more or less I htink first you ned to deal with your CO2 issues and get more control over your macro and trace dosing. I am sure your co2 is very low for a planted tank. 2, 1 liter botles of yeast DIY is not nearly enough. That would be ok for maybe a 30 gallon You could set up a Press. CO2 for around 100 bucks or so, I have about 130 in mine but remember it is a one time investment. Refil the tank every 6-8 months for less than 20 dollars. The amount you spend on more lighting would not be less than the CO2 setup and you will cause more problems later with high light and inadequate CO2.

Check your CO2 concentrations. If you don't already know you can test your Kh and pH to get your CO2 levels. Chuck Gadd has a great place for this. Just download the windows program. It works great. Most of us keep our CO2 around 20-30ppm, anything over 15 is acceptable. I bet you have less than 10. Inproving these levels is the best thing you can do for fast growing plants, like your Sunset.

You should also have a good knowledge of what your NO3(and even P) are. For 100gal tank your trace(flourish) dosing is probably a low, although you did not say how much you are dosing.

Get your plants growing good before you worry about the color. Learn what they need and then you can start depriving them of nutrients to bring out their color. Get your CO2 levels up, make sure your NO3 is between 10-15ppm to start, dose to 1ppm of P at your wc and keep up with the trace ferts. You will see a marked improvement in your plants health. Before you start upping the trace and Fe though, get you CO2 going good, or you risk an algae attack.

I have found that the most improtant "elements" of a tank generally go in this order CO2, Light, NO3, Traces(ie. Flourish, TMG, etc), P....

You should already have enough Ca/Mg in your water. If your plants are deficient in these nutrients, and it is certainly possible, then it is probably because the plants are growing poorly due to a lack of a good Carbon source and lack of NO3.

Hope that helps.[/url]

 

[dennis]

Glad it was helpful.

Don't know much about TMG and the others, my only experience is with Flourish. A capful is 5 ml and you dose 4 caps of each per week. So 20ml of flourish and 20 ml of Fe(which, using hte Fertilator at this site gives you ~.12 ppm of Fe, not much at all). By comparison I dose 8-10 ml of each per week in my 10 gallon. You have 100 gallons.... You could dose more but you also will run the risk of having a lot of nutrients build up because of hte lack of CO2.

What of the NO3 and P tests?

What is your tank like otherwise. Much algae? Do many of the plants grow poorly yet or is this the first real sign of deficency? If algae is not a problem and your other plants seem ok then I would not up the dosing of the traces much. Hopefully others will chime in here and help more there

My best suggestion is to make sure your NO3 does not bottom out. Keep it between 10-15ppm if possible. Here a littel more is better than a little less, IMHO.

WHat is your fish load like?

Try to get CO2 as soon as you can. It wil help you the most. In the mean time, use this opportunity to learn as much as you can Enjoy it