Pet Forum / Aquaria / Plants / March 2004

From: nick_down@hotmail.com  (Nick D)

A good temporary fix is to buy some Phos-Zorb and and put the pouch in your
filter.  But you really need to find the cause.  The most obvious suspect is
over-feeding.

Nick Wise
http://members.aol.com/nwwise01

Hi there

Ditch one of your tubes, 3.5 watts per gallon is a tad on the bright side.
Try 2 WPG or near to there. Your co2 is not keeping up (20ppm) with this
ammount of light. Maybe cut an hour out of the photo period aswell.

Ditch the activated carbon aswell, no use for it in a planted tank. You
might be TOO RELIGIOUS with your maintenance routine :) , Are you adding
Nitrates back to the tank after water changes? If your N is 0-5ppm then your
plants are starving. There is a relationship between N & P, I would say that
your Nitrates are being used up too quickly therefore leaving the available
Phosphate to float around the water column...

IME Root stix are a disaster, this may be adding to the phosphate levels you
report. Try and vacuum some of them out. If your tank is only 6 weeks old
you might want to give it a bit of time until you have some mulm build up
before seeing any good signs in the plants! You will have to start dosing
Macro ferts in the water column as I think your gravel may still be a bit
sterile for plants to inhabit happily.

You must start adding ferts asap, your plants are starving.
Go to the pharmacy/drug store/chemist and buy the following:
But before adding ferts, ALWAYS make sure that your co2 levels are high and
are stable. Add another bottle if you have to, according to Tom Barr you
want to shoot for about 30ppm in the morning and try and keep it there, if
you are at 20ppm in the evening this would be ok.
Salt Petre (Pottassium Nitrate or KNO3) dose 1 level teaspoon twice a week.
This will take care of Pottassium aswell as Nitrates. No-Salt contains
Pottassium Chloride and could be added as an extra dose but probably not
necessary.
You can get fleet enema as a phosphate source (when your levels come down),
dose 3 drops twice weekly.
You can use Epsom salts as a Magnesium source, Or dolomite pills/powder as a
calcium & Magnesium source at the correct ratios. Im not sure about the
dosing quantity for this one, I let the plants indicate a calcium deficiency
by looking at the leaves on Hygro Polysperma, they get "wrinkled".
Of course not to forget your micro ferts which can be bought at any LFS,
take your pick, I've used Kent and Sera ferts and they seem to work well!

Hows that for a long winded post ;)
--
**So long, and thanks for all the fish!**

In addition to light and CO2, plants need nutrients to grow. Nutrients are
divided into two categories:
Macro Nutrients: Nitrogen, Phosphate, & Nitrogen
Micro Nutrients: Trace elements (iron, zinc, etc ..)

In the presence of good light and CO2 levels, the plants will grow until one
or more nutrients is expended. At that time, they will stop growing (and
consuming nutrients) even though other nutrients are abundant.

In your case, the limiting nutrient seems to be Nitrogen (nitrate levels are
very low). It is understandable that your plants stopped growing or slowed
down. Unfortunately, unlike plants, algae can fix its own nitrogen and can
therefore continue to grow in the absence of nitrogen as long as the
remaining nutrients are available (all in the presence of light and CO2).

Therefore, what you need to do is make sure that there is ample supply of
nitrogen (as nitrate), potassium and trace elements. Eventually, all of the
available phosphate is consumed by the plants (and algae) and phosphate
becomes the growth limiting factor. At that stage, your plants -being the
dominant macro organisms- will be able to out-compete the algae for the
available phosphate. The algae disappears.

In summary

- Add Nitrate to 5-10 ppm - raise the level slowly over a course of a week
(after you have dealt with the excess phosphate)
- Add Trace elements using a kit like SeaChem Flourish
- Some people suggest the addition of potassium as K2S04 or KCl to make sure
potassium is in ample supply
- Maintain your current levels of light and CO2

Your phosphate levels should always be near zero (0). If growth becomes too
hindered, you can control it using very small doses of phosphate from a
source such as fish food or fleet enema

In the short term, however, you need to reduce your phosphates in order to
arrest the algae bloom using one of the available products on the market.

And, get rid of the carbon filter, it absorbs your micro nutrients (trace
elements) making them the limiting growth factor.

Don't forget the weekly 25% + water changes to dilute any excess nutrients
you've added to ensure they are in ample supply.

If it's not in the tap water then your plant spikes are leaking
phosphates. How thick is the substrate and what kind of plant sticks
are you using? Also what kind of gravel do you have? (the larger the
grain the easier it is for elements to come out of the substrates).
Everything else sounds good to me.

Hope that helps
Giancarlo Podio