|Jeff's 95G Acrylic Manzanita Scape| 8/23/12

[Geniusdudekiran]

Originally Posted by green_valley

That's what I thought.....Btw, do they really help to suck up some nutrients? I know people use them when they do Potting soil and capped. But I have never used them and had no problem.

I know this is an older comment, but...

I am doing my junior research project on using different aquatic plants to reduce excess nutrients from wastewater (i.e. constructed wetlands) and I have found from a few good scientific journal articles that Duckweed (Lemna sp.) do not only remove many common nutrients found in our aquariums, but also will preferentially suck up ammonia from water in the presence of other chemicals and compounds.

So if you have a tank where you're worried about excess ammonia, nitrite, nitrates, phosphorus, sodium, potassium... the list goes on. Point being -- yes, they do. I can't wait to do my own research on it.

[jkan0228]

So.... It's been quite some time and I think it's time for an update as I just got back from a 6 week trip to Taiwan and it was pretty awesome

I left my Dad in charge of "taking care" of the tank which consisted of feeding the fish and clearing the Salvinia every few days. Completely forgot to ask him to dose the water column via PPS-Pro which ended in some algae issues. Non of which I've seen before apart from GSA. Hopefully you guys can help me out here.

I was pretty astonished by the growth of some plants when I came back mainly by the pad of mini-xmas moss that I placed in the tank the day before I left for Taiwan. The growth from the MQ was also quite impressive as you can see in the pics below

Lets start of with the MQ:

Before


6 weeks later


Not sure what's wrong with my fissidens, didn't grow as much as I would expect but I'm blaming the zero water column dosing, what do you guys think?




Right side before:


6 weeks later:







Left before:


6 weeks later:

Not much growth from the Mini Pellia


Same with the C. Keei and Lucens


Plenty of growth from Wendtii Tropica and Green Gecko as expected


Weird algae and growth from Anubias Nana Petite and Mini Bolbitis


Overall, the C. Lucens, Marsilea Quadrifolia, Anubias Nana 'Petite', Golden Anubias suffered most from the algae and the C. Keei had the least growth overall along with the fissidens. The Mini-Xmas Moss had the most growth out of everything, quite impressive IMO.

[speedie408]

Looks great dude.

About your FF, keep a close eye on your Roseline barbs. They did an awesome job keeping a section of my FF in my old setup "mowed". They like nipping at it for some reason.

[jkan0228]

Originally Posted by speedie408

Looks great dude.

About your FF, keep a close eye on your Roseline barbs. They did an awesome job keeping a section of my FF in my old setup "mowed". They like nipping at it for some reason.

Maybe it's tasty.... But what would explain the browning of it?

[speedie408]

Browning just means something is deficient or it needs more time to acclimate.

From experience I can say in general, fissidens can be really finicky, especially after being transferred from one tank to another. It don't handle parameter changes as well as other mosses. Just give it some time. If string algae or BBA starts growing on it, make sure to take the algae off and dose Excel (never directly on it). Otherwise, it'll suffocate the fissidens and you'll lose it for sure.

This plant don't really require high light or CO2 to grow. As long as there's low to moderate lighting, you should be fine. It does grow fastest with high light/CO2, yes.

[jkan0228]

Thanks. Guess the PPS-Pro should've been dosed.

Could you explain this horror as well?

[jkan0228]

Just an FTS

[moosenart]

Looks great!

[Amandas tank]

Interesting journal you have here from start to finish Your last FTS looks good. How's this tank looking now? Has your moss stopped browning? I imagine the growth of all the other plants has been good since the last update. Anymore algae or has that been resolved?

I would love to see a November picture

[jkan0228]

Originally Posted by Amandas tank

Interesting journal you have here from start to finish Your last FTS looks good. How's this tank looking now? Has your moss stopped browning? I imagine the growth of all the other plants has been good since the last update. Anymore algae or has that been resolved?

I would love to see a November picture

Thanks Amanda!

This tank right now is slowly recovering from a change in pH substrate as highly concentrated pockets of dolomite and potash caused levels to be toxic and calcium carbonate tablets were used to bring the pH to a more neutral levels for optimal absorption. The tablets were added back at the end of August and finally after the mass melting and whatnot have the plants started to show signs of recovery and growth. I'd prefer not to show any pics right now just because there isn't much to see

The moss has stopped browning and I suspect that it was the Co2 as when I came back from Taiwan the Co2 was running at a feeble 1bps. Ferts had also stopped as I didn't have the two autodosers up and running yet. But now all is good.

I've got some algae that looks to be GDA on steroids which I've started to attempt to eradicate through H2O2 (I never knew this stuff was THAT cheap).

[Amandas tank]

Ah man that's too bad! Good things are on the uphill now though! I will check back periodically to see how things are going. Hoping for the best for ya!