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:The only reason I hesitate with limnobium is I've heard their roots grow super long and can get caught in the filter.
I don't think so, I think in Phyllanthus leaf colour is dependent upon light intensity.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.
Cabomba caroliniana is definitely native to Brazil <http://www.cabi.org/isc/datasheet/107743>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.
<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.
from <http://www.amazonian-fish.co.uk/indexc6b1.html>.
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:Anyways, couldn't I just use my fertilizer to bring up hardness?
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: 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?
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, 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 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.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 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
cheers Darrel