[burr740]

Can someone ID this plant for me please?

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Acmella repens in back. The smaller bright green in front is Oldenlandia salzmannii

 

[happi]

Burr, they are not looking too bad, i just notice some issues on the end of the tip, where some leaves are bending downward, seems like longer internodes as well, if one use quite rich dose of Urea/NH4 i have noticed increase in growth and longer internodes. the good thing is i did not notice much issue with lower leaves falling, twisted, holes etc in them, which is usually very common in most people plants i have witnessed. however, i slightly notice yellowing on some leaves on some plants, this could mean plant have issue obtaining N or having issue converting N to usable form, this is where NH4/Urea comes handy, NH4 can skip the need for Mo and plant can use it directly, Urea somewhat similar, long as there is decent amount of Ni present in your water. i hope you don't get me wrong if i have said anything too negative, you are more than welcome to throw anything at me, so i could improve further. i would love to see more very close up pics, from top to bottom of the plant, if you maintained the good growth from top to bottom, you my friend will be the winner. but overall, your experiment been a good demonstration. looking forward to see more, i would love to help if you want me to participate in anything.

 

[Greggz]

In other news got my ribbon from AGA today. Its pretty nice, well made and big.

Woo hoo!

Notwithstanding the excellent information in the rest of this post, I just have to once again offer my sincere congratulations on this award.

You should be very proud, and I am glad you were recognized for what I know was a great deal of effort.

It really is a significant achievement, and is an inspiration to many.

 

[fablau]

Yes, congratulations for the ribbon my friend, you really deserve it!

 

[fablau]

Burr, they are not looking too bad, i just notice some issues on the end of the tip, where some leaves are bending downward, seems like longer internodes as well, if one use quite rich dose of Urea/NH4 i have noticed increase in growth and longer internodes. the good thing is i did not notice much issue with lower leaves falling, twisted, holes etc in them, which is usually very common in most people plants i have witnessed. however, i slightly notice yellowing on some leaves on some plants, this could mean plant have issue obtaining N or having issue converting N to usable form, this is where NH4/Urea comes handy, NH4 can skip the need for Mo and plant can use it directly, Urea somewhat similar, long as there is decent amount of Ni present in your water. i hope you don't get me wrong if i have said anything too negative, you are more than welcome to throw anything at me, so i could improve further. i would love to see more very close up pics, from top to bottom of the plant, if you maintained the good growth from top to bottom, you my friend will be the winner. but overall, your experiment been a good demonstration. looking forward to see more, i would love to help if you want me to participate in anything.

Happi, do you dose NiSO4.6H2O ? If so, how much of it?

 

[burr740]

Happi, do you dose NiSO4.6H2O ? If so, how much of it?

Mine just arrived today, gonna start with .5 ppb. I think it has very low potential for toxicity, gram for gram far less than Cu. So hopefully that should be both plenty and safe


Also I was just telling Vin about a very interesting thing that happened yesterday, in all 3 tanks

Ive been dosing a .2 Fe blend every day for about a week and a half. Yesterday was micro day, the 4th dose since last water change.

Since Im dosing micros every day I did not add urea to this latest mix. I kept it separate that way Im not double dosing on macro days (its in the macro solution)

So now on micro days I add micros from one bottle plus urea from another. Well today I forgot the urea. It was the first time in a long while without a daily dose.

About an hour after the lights came on I noticed the 120 was already pearling more than usual, a lot more. Then a coupe hours later it was like a rolling boil, way more than usual. All three tanks were doing it.

So... either the .2 micros have suddenly built up into a very positive thing, or the plants really liked not having the urea. Im leaning towards the latter, although it seems rather fast for such a reaction

Im going to keep dosing the urea and see if nickel makes any difference, if not then Im going to stop urea and see what happens.

 

[happi]

Happi, do you dose NiSO4.6H2O ? If so, how much of it?

i personally use anywhere from 0.000005-0.0001 ppm Ni.

 

[iamaloner]

Such a gorgeous plant. Acmella that is. Can't find it anywhere in Canada, looks like it's native to the southern usa.

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[Greggz]

Burr, they are not looking too bad, i just notice some issues on the end of the tip, where some leaves are bending downward, seems like longer internodes as well, if one use quite rich dose of Urea/NH4 i have noticed increase in growth and longer internodes. the good thing is i did not notice much issue with lower leaves falling, twisted, holes etc in them, which is usually very common in most people plants i have witnessed. however, i slightly notice yellowing on some leaves on some plants, this could mean plant have issue obtaining N or having issue converting N to usable form, this is where NH4/Urea comes handy, NH4 can skip the need for Mo and plant can use it directly, Urea somewhat similar, long as there is decent amount of Ni present in your water. i hope you don't get me wrong if i have said anything too negative, you are more than welcome to throw anything at me, so i could improve further. i would love to see more very close up pics, from top to bottom of the plant, if you maintained the good growth from top to bottom, you my friend will be the winner. but overall, your experiment been a good demonstration. looking forward to see more, i would love to help if you want me to participate in anything.

Happi your post above brings to mind something I think about quite often.

Let's say you meticulously focused solely on the needs of the Pantanal. You adjusted every single parameter (lighting/ferts/co2/GH/KH/substrate/etc. etc. etc.) so that the Pantanal was 100% absolutely the best it can possibly be in every single respect.

My question then would be what happens to the maybe 20 other species that are in that tank? Are they also equally 100% perfect? It's like when I see experiments with a single species in a small tank. I like following them and always find the results interesting. But what if you had 20 different species in 20 different small tanks. Would the recipe to get the absolute best out of each species be exactly the same?

Let's take the Pikez kill tanks as an example. While trying to torture certain plants, the strange thing is that others thrive. Take one of those thriving plants to the Dutch tank, and sometimes it tanks in a hurry. And vice versa coming from the Dutch to the kill tanks.

It seems to me the trick in a real world planted tank is walking that fine line trying to balance the individual needs of 20 or more species. Can it really be done? Can you get the 100% perfect best out of multiple species in a single tank?

Thoughts?

 

[happi]

Happi your post above brings to mind something I think about quite often.

Let's say you meticulously focused solely on the needs of the Pantanal. You adjusted every single parameter (lighting/ferts/co2/GH/KH/substrate/etc. etc. etc.) so that the Pantanal was 100% absolutely the best it can possibly be in every single respect.

My question then would be what happens to the maybe 20 other species that are in that tank? Are they also equally 100% perfect? It's like when I see experiments with a single species in a small tank. I like following them and always find the results interesting. But what if you had 20 different species in 20 different small tanks. Would the recipe to get the absolute best out of each species be exactly the same?

Let's take the Pikez kill tanks as an example. While trying to torture certain plants, the strange thing is that others thrive. Take one of those thriving plants to the Dutch tank, and sometimes it tanks in a hurry. And vice versa coming from the Dutch to the kill tanks.

It seems to me the trick in a real world planted tank is walking that fine line trying to balance the individual needs of 20 or more species. Can it really be done? Can you get the 100% perfect best out of multiple species in a single tank?

Thoughts?

yes i know exactly what you are talking about, if we could grow lets say 75% equally healthy vs other 15% decently healthy and 10% close to fair, that mean we are quite close to what plant really likes. i have witnessed some plant are quite hardy and they had very little affect on growth vs the other, take my own observation for example, LIMNOPHILA AROMATICA vs ludwigia pantanal, Aromatica grew great without loosing any leaf or any serious issue in both extremely high to very low nutrients, this plant was quite hardy and i dont recommend it for experimental purpose as i mention, its very hardy and wont tell you much about the experiments, pantanal on the other hand is very responsive to the change, bottom lower leaves falling, loss of lower leave colors etc, that mean something is missing or wrong, panantal grew best and bushier under NH4NO3 vs KNo3, it also grew great under urea but had little longer internodes, Monte carlo, same results occured as panantal, leaf size got smaller and smaller when KNO3 was the only source of N. from my own experiment what am saying is, you might get 50% good results on 50% plants while other suffers while just using KNO3, soon as you switch to NH4NO3, now you have 90%+ success, Urea again very high success with similar results as NH4NO3, there could be few Sp. that might respond differently to certain ratio or in other word slightly more of Boron, Mn, ZN etc, but once you have the correct or decent ratio, you are feeding all your plants correctly, lets say if one plant need 0.1 ppm B and other one only need 0.05 B and you add 0.15 ppm B, this will fill the needs for both plants, but add 1 ppm B is not the correct way of doing it if you are thinking of that, i personally believe in Both toxicity and Deficiency, as both can occur in our tanks, so i play it safely. i hope this make sense.

 

[burr740]

The good thing about having all three tanks set up the same way is that I can be more sure about what caused something, or what didnt.

All three tanks have the same substrate and tap water. Same filters with surface skimmers, similar flow, same type of co2 reactors. Same T5 lighting with PAR ranging from 90-120. A similar fish or shrimp bioload and they all get the exact same ferts.

Let's say I change ferts and only one tank reacts. Well then it might be something else, biomass overload in the 120, low co2 in the 50, some other unknown in the 75.

Its also why I like to keep some of the same plants in each one. If Ludwigia red puckers up in one tank but not the other two, then it's probably not the ferts but something else specific to that particular tank.

So it also helps pinpoint other issues that may arise. Say a little BBA shows up in the 75...probably not the ferts, might be time to clean the filter...

But if all three tanks have the same response then it's safe to assume it's a direct result of whatever change was made.

 

[happi]

Joe, any more update on your tank with Ni dosing with some pictures?

 

[Phil Edwards]

Obligatory FTS. Today's word is biomass, as in too much of it. Trim is long overdue!

Why do you believe biomass is a bad thing? It appears to me that everything's getting good flow and is healthy.

 

[burr740]

Why do you believe biomass is a bad thing? It appears to me that everything's getting good flow and is healthy.

There's usually a tipping point when severe overgrowth begins to cause issues. Issues like stunting or algae, anything really, which can appear to stem from a myriad of other causes like ferts or co2, or whatever. But no it is simply a biomass overload. Adding more gas or ferts or wont help.

Thats why trimming and pruning is such an underrated aspect of keeping a fast-driven tank running smoothly. You see threads all the time from folks trying to figure out why they have bba all of a sudden, or this or that plant is stunting.

What usually ensues is a drawn out discussion of what deficiency or toxicity has magically appeared, meticulous analysis of every ppm, offered up by well meaning and knowledgeable folks just trying to help.

In many such cases all that is needed is a good bushwhacking and to clear out some older plant mass = especially if things were previously going well for any length of time. It is amazing how many issues a good trim and clean out will quickly solve (and prevent)

You mentioned that it looks like good flow in my picture, and there is, at least in the top half of the water column. Here's the FTS in question

Its hard to grasp from the picture but that bush of Ludwigia red is bigger than a basketball. The height is not the problem though. The problem is it's been topped few times already leaving the stumps to sprout new ones, which is not a bad way to handle this plant.

But after 3-4 times without uprooting, such as the case has been here, the lower half is now a very dense wad of stems and side shoots, areal roots and tons of crappy leaves. A wad so dense a shrimp couldnt walk through it (exaggeration obviously but you get the picture)

This is all garbage material that's doing nothing but blocking flow, leaching organics, and sucking up valuable resources. The Penthorum and Mini Limno are in a similar state.

The tank as a whole hadnt reached the tipping point I mentioned earlier where problems start to arise, but its not far from it and just happened to be getting on my nerves at the time.

 

[Phil Edwards]

Interesting. I guess I haven't experienced that as I typically follow a topping then replant regimen with my stems. I hardly ever top more than once; twice at the most if I'm preparing for a competition photo shoot. The replanting gives me a good chance to clean out all the crap that's accumulated at the substrate and removes the older stem material. What was unintentionally old is new again?

 

[burr740]

Joe, any more update on your tank with Ni dosing with some pictures?

I'll post an update soon. In the process of setting up two new 20 longs in the back room (yay!!) so things have been a little chaotic lately.

As for the Ni, nothing much to report really. I couldnt tell much difference one way or the other for the first week and a half, then the whole Purigen thing happened. (This is a long drawn out discussion I wont try to copy it all here. Anyone interested can check out the last few pages of that thread)

Since removing the Purigen form all my filters things have really kicked up a notch. As I said in the other thread, either the nickel is soaking in and doing wonders, or the Purigen was having a negative effect on something.

Either way it's hard now to make any direct correlations from adding nickel, other than to say there's been no negative effects that I can tell dosing .5 ppb every day

Bump:

Interesting. I guess I haven't experienced that as I typically follow a topping then replant regimen with my stems. I hardly ever top more than once; twice at the most if I'm preparing for a competition photo shoot. The replanting gives me a good chance to clean out all the crap that's accumulated at the substrate and removes the older stem material. What was unintentionally old is new again?

Its easy for me to get lazy probably because I "re-home" so many plants. There's a tendency to just top things and leave all the stumps, rinse and repeat 3-4 weeks later, and again and again.

If not for that I would be a lot more meticulous with things, doing more like you said.

 

[Phil Edwards]

Since nickel has a +2 charge the Purigen may have been removing it from the water. It's normally selective for +1 materialss, but it won't say no to a +2 if it gets close enough. The reason it's more effective against organic compounds is they're big and get trapped more easily than the smaller metallic ions.

 

[burr740]

Since nickel has a +2 charge the Purigen may have been removing it from the water. It's normally selective for +1 materialss, but it won't say no to a +2 if it gets close enough. The reason it's more effective against organic compounds is they're big and get trapped more easily than the smaller metallic ions.

Very interesting. What other micro elements do you think it might affect?

 

[Greggz]

Burr nice explanation above about bio mass, and I couldn't agree with you more.

Like you said, this is something that is not discussed often, but it has finally sunk in for me.

Just the other day, I dealt with a patch of Hygro Cory Compact. It was a group of nine plants that just grew into a big blob. Noticed it was loosing a few leaves, and some alga starting to form on the old growth. I pulled them all out, and split three of the plants into nine smaller ones. Within days they showed beautiful new growth.

And the mini limno and Lud. Sp. Red are two great examples. Once in a while you just need to yank them out and reduce the mass. In a few days they bounce back better than ever.

And I've said this before but it bears repeating. When some people see your tank, I know they must think boy that guy is lucky. He must have miracle gro coming right out of the tap (I know that's what I thought when I first came here!)

But when I see your tank, I see the results of someone who is working harder at it, and pays very close attention to detail. What you present doesn't happen by accident, and there is far more to it than most imagine.

And I agree, with all the discussion of lighting/ferts/Co2 etc, I've noticed that with most of the very successful planted tankers that I follow, good old fashioned elbow grease is also a key component, and not to be underestimated.

 

[burr740]

Just the other day, I dealt with a patch of Hygro Cory Compact. It was a group of nine plants that just grew into a big blob. Noticed it was loosing a few leaves, and some alga starting to form on the old growth. I pulled them all out, and split three of the plants into nine smaller ones. Within days they showed beautiful new growth.

This is a perfect example. Many folks would start questioning their CO2 and ferts at this point, chasing endless phantoms in a perpetual game of whack-a-mole.

When a little attention to the plant itself is all that was ever needed.