Tank Chem: Remineralizing Water

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dw1305
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Re: Tank Chem: Remineralizing Water

Post by dw1305 »

Hi all,
zurikitty13 wrote:The only reason I hesitate with limnobium is I've heard their roots grow super long and can get caught in the filter.
The long roots of Pistia and Limnobium are one of their advantages, I use a pref-filter sponge on the filter intake, it stops vegetation ending up in the filter and also has a number of other advantages.
zurikitty13 wrote:Can I use RRF as my indicator floater? The color ranges from green to red, so I assume it'd be a good indicator.
I don't think so, I think in Phyllanthus leaf colour is dependent upon light intensity.
zurikitty13 wrote:Also, neither of the plants you suggested are South American, sorry to say. Caroliniana is north American and I think the other is Asian.
Cabomba caroliniana is definitely native to Brazil <http://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/107743>

Image <http://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/107743>.

Nomenclature is uncertain in the genus Ceratopteris, but the distribution is "pan-tropical". The S. American plant maybe a different species, but you can find pictures of C. pteroides in varzea lakes etc.
Image from <http://www.amazonian-fish.co.uk/indexc6b1.html>.
zurikitty13 wrote:Anyways, couldn't I just use my fertilizer to bring up hardness?
The calcium and magnesium you add will raise dGH (a measure of the divalent ions), but you need to add a carbonate containing compound (like CaCO3 or KHCO3) to raise dKH.
zurikitty13 wrote: I have a tds meter, so combining that w/ rrf as an indicator should be good I think. Plus, rummynoses do best in unmineralized distilled water, so tap water would probably be overkill, right?
I use conductivity (TDS meters measure conductivity and then multiply by ~0.62) as an indicator, it tells you the quantity of ions in solution, but not their composition. For soft water fish (like Rummynoses, bearing in mind there are three different species with different requirements) I aim for about 100 microS.
zurikitty13 wrote:Also, could I get a red t5 fluorescent bulb? I plan on getting a centromochlus perugiae, and they cannot see red light, so I'd like to get one of those.
You can use what light colour you like to view the fish, but you can only use a bulb that replicates sun-light to grow the plants. As far as we know photosynthesis evolved only once several billion years ago and "plants" have evolved ever since to exploit the light spectrum produced by our sun.
zurikitty13 wrote:Also, that link on plant nutrition triggered honors biology flashbacks X'D very interesting nonetheless. Don't want to give up my beautiful black sand, so I'm going to put some peat moss underneath. Using liquid fertilizer, will that be enough? I'd really rather not use root tabs or anything like that, nor do I want to upturn my tank with a completely new substrate. Sliding a mesh bag of peat moss underneath wouldn't be too bad. Trying to achieve ultimate laziness levels through this low tech tank.
You can add peat to the filter in a bag, it has to be sphagnum peat to soften the water, but it doesn't add many nutrient. It isn't really a renewable resource, so I use dead leaves instead.

You can grow Echinodorus plants without an enriched substrate, all plants can take in nutrients through their leaves, but as TTA suggests they will still eventually grew fairly large.

This is a 2' tank which is mainly filled with single plants of Echinodorus bleheri and Bolbitis heudelotii

Image

cheers Darrel
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Re: Tank Chem: Remineralizing Water

Post by TwoTankAmin »

There is one huge difference in feeding the plants via their leaves and via the substrate. One cannot have any level of ammonia in the water, but you can have it in the substrate. I would reference something Tom Barr says, the best fertilization is usually one which uses both water and substrate feeding. Not all swords need this, but some varieties definitely benefit greatly from it. I am cheap and I use Jobes Spikes for this. In about 2003 I traded a bag of my lf bn for a large supply of the Jobes Fern and Palm spikes with a gent in Florida. I had trouble finding that specific spike here in NY. I have not used them all up yet :) You cannot be disturbing the substrate if you use these or you quickly get a lesson in algae gone wild. The are not ideal for the constant rescaper/replanter.

I tend to have a lot of faith in Tropica. I cannot think of a better plant outfit. One of the more popular plants we use in our tanks was 'developed" by them, the frilly tipped java fern, "Microsorum pteropus 'Windeløv' is a patented variety of Microsorum pteropus, named after Tropica's founder Holger Windeløv." Then there is Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Tropica'.

If anybody has expert advice on plants, it's these folks, imo. Here is their blurb on the Cambomba carolinea:
Cabomba is a very popular aquarium plant from South America owing to its beautiful foliage. It reaches 30-80 cm and each stem can become 5-8 cm wide.The least demanding of the Cabomba-species, but still causes problems in poorly lit aquariums. If there is not sufficient light, try Limnophila sessiliflora, which requires less light. Most decorative when planted in groups. Eaten locally as a vegetable.
So if you are ever stuck for salad.....
from http://tropica.com/en/plants/plantdetai ... DT%29/4431

Here is a Tropica vid on how to plant a variety of things- I know the cabomba and the bleheri are in this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44cDbR2YvK4
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Re: Tank Chem: Remineralizing Water

Post by zurikitty13 »

Ok, decided I don't want to mess around with my sand, so I'm going to stick to stem plants for the most part, might do one or two root plants and just stick in some root tabs if needed. Updated plant choice:

Cabomba caroliniana 30-80 cm stem
Hygrophila polysperma 25-40 cm tall, 4-8 cm wide stem
Limnonium laevigatum 5-15 cm wide floater or Pistia stratiotes (smaller than limnomium) floater
Echinodorus reni 15-40 cm rosulate
Staurogyne repens 5-10 cm tall, 3-4 cm wide stem
Microsorum pteropus 15-30 cm tall rhizomatous
Echinodorus quadricostatus 10-15 cm tall, 10-15 cm wide rosulate

I like caroliniana, but it gets kinda tall, no? Gets taller than the swords. Am I able to propagate by cutting off sections like I can with my anacharis plants? Also, tropica says pistia is a good indicator plant, so I kinda want to get it. I like the hairy roots look, and the roots aren't as long, and the plant isn't as big. I still would like to get quadricostatus despite its lengthy size because I like that its a micro-nutrient indicator, because I really don't want to buy anymore test kits. I'm thinking I put peat underneath the sand in the section where I put the echinodorus only, then stick in root tabs if necessary. Also, I know microsorum isn't south american, but I do have 3 kuhli loaches in my tank, and its native to where they are from, so I want them to feel a little more at home. Same thing with hygrophila, just a preference choice. I'm not going for a perfect amazonian biotope, but would like to stick to the guidelines of one as much as possible.

As for lighting, I'm going to go buy a cool white bulb tomorrow. Probably something like this: http://www.lowes.com/pd_161595-371-6424 ... luorescent
Going to keep one actinic, which I believe my actinic is 50/50, half white half blue, so I think combined with the cool light the plants will be happy. Found a good light calculator too: http://rotalabutterfly.com/light-calculator.php
According to this calculator, my PAR @ Depth will be 66, and my lux 7,858.
For viewing my Centromochlus, I'm going to buy some cheap red LEDS and tape them under my hood and turn them on for an hour or two before I go to bed. Does setting my time from 10-8 sound like a good time to start with for my plants? And is keeping the red LED on for a few hours after this harmful to my plants?

And finally, here's my updated fertilizer:
48g KNO3
4.4g Monopotassium phosphate
34g Sulphate Heptahydrate
1.0g E300 Ascorbic Acid
.4g E202 Potassium Sorbate
10g CSM+B
1000ml distilled water
5 ml doses

I did the calculations a little quickly, I'll check them over for mistakes tomorrow. If you guys see anything, let me know! I purposely kept the ratios of all the nutrients a little low, specifically KNO3, because I want soft water, and nitrates always seem to build up quickly in my tank. I plan on having my tank fully stocked. Today I added sphagnum peat moss and oyster chick grit to my filter. Actually, I added the peat moss a couple days ago, waited until my pH dropped to about 6.2, then put in the oyster chick grit to start counter-acting/buffering. I've got baking soda on hand, worst comes to worst. I plan on keeping my hardness around 100 microsiemens as well. When you say you aim for that amount, do you mean you do a water change when it reaches 100, or do you wait until it exceeds 100 a little? Because water hardness is difficult to keep constant. Thanks for all the links and input, especially love the pictures of your tanks and the map!

Edit: Want to add leaves to the bottom of my aquarium, what brand/type do you guys suggest?
Last edited by zurikitty13 on 22 May 2016, 17:02, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Tank Chem: Remineralizing Water

Post by TwoTankAmin »

Pretty much all the stem plants can be dealt with the same way. When you buy them they are single stems and, as you noted, the will keep growing. When they get too tall you have two options. These are based on what happens if you just cut them in half and leave the bottom part in place.When you do this they will then put out multiple stems from just below the cut. Instead of ending up with a single stem, you get a more bushy effect. The lower down you make the cut, the more bush-like it will look. The other option will keep the plant as a single stem. For this you must pull the plant out of the substrate cut it and then replant the upper part of the plant.

Depending on the look you want will determine how you prune them. If you want to reproduce stems, the easiest way is to let them bush and then you can cut any of the multiple shoots from the bush and wind up with a single stem. The other neat thing about stem plants is they can be floated and they will grow this way.

One interesting note about the hygro poly. This plant will often put out roots along the stem. It is possible to take such a stem and lay it horizontally along the substrate in the foreground and then use a tweezers to push the roots along the stem into the substrate. Whenever the hygro tries to send a shoot upwards, you prune it off. Eventually you can have the plant growing along the substrate like a ground cover. Below is a picture of a 5.5 gal. tank right after I set it up and had planted it with some hygro placed as described and starting to settle in. The two rising parts got pruned a short time later.
Image
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Re: Tank Chem: Remineralizing Water

Post by racoll »

zurikitty13 wrote:Also, tropica says pistia is a good indicator plant, so I kinda want to get it. I like the hairy roots look, and the roots aren't as long, and the plant isn't as big.
I never had much success with Pistia. They often come as very large outdoor-grown plants and therefore need as much as 6 inches of space between the the surface and the condensation tray. In my tank they were not getting enough light I think---despite multiple tubes---, or maybe too humid, and they just regressed in size until they died off.
zurikitty13 wrote:I'm not going for a perfect amazonian biotope, but would like to stick to the guidelines of one as much as possible.
Not sure exactly what you mean by "perfect amazonian biotope", but / are not commonly associated with aquatic plants. They are generally found in open water and are very active (at night). For me, a 20 gallon tank with floating plants would not give them enough swimming place near the surface.
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