Quote:
Originally Posted by Martin
UG is a horrible plant.. totally unpredictable 
Whenever I planted it in a tank at work the UG seemed to evaluate my attention. If I ignore it completely, it grows like a baby on fire... if I fuss around it, making sure all conditions are in order.. it goes brown and dies.. You could grow UG more successfully like our old friend HC..emersed.. or at least partially emersed. |
It's not too bad for me.
Like some plants, you need to let them do their thing and then after they are well estbalished, then..............you can trim and control.
You need to let the plant roots get going in enough mass to control things in the aquarium. Then you can uproot a % without too much issue.
I took out a lot of biomass and roots(imporantly) and things did not do well until they where returned and established a again. No algae etc, but plant growth and fish health are not as good as with.
So the transition between lots of well established roots and new planting is the key it seems to me. The roots pump O2 and help the bacteria really get amplified.
This takes time, adding external O2 will not increase this process(hence the issue with Heating cables and Powersand claims..........), good plant health will, this is a plant driven internal plant related process, not something you can amplify. Some seem to assume you can(likely cause they spent their wad of cash on the product and are trying to rationalize their purchase), but there's no evidence that is in any way emperical (lots of faith based claims though) nor has there been in well over 30 years of claims.
I've seen the plant roots do this on numerous tanks. I've also used RFUG which adds a lot of O2 for over 10 years of use. Saw little difference. It just takes time for the roots to grow and good health(CO2/light/nutrients) and shoot growth are the only real factors that will increase the root growth. Plants allocate root growth/resources based on the production of sugars from the shoot, not from O2 additions.
Takes more than O2 to grow a root
This is common sense.
I've seen it on this 180 as well.
Regards,
Tom Barr