From: "Tasslehoff"


Echinodorus species like substrate fertilisation very very much. Adding
an
iron/N:P:K root tab might help.

Would adding liquid NPK fertilizer help too? In any case, I'm kind of wary
of adding phosphorous (phophates) to my aquarium, seeing as I already have
algae problems. In fact, I think I have brush algae on the plants. Nasty
stuff. And I can't seem to find real siamese algae eaters around here. False
siamensis, yes, but not the real thing. I have no idea where I could buy
some here in Canada.

Perhaps I'm mistaken and adding NPK wouldn't cause any trouble. Maybe I can
control the algae by changing my tube. Someone once told me that Hagen's
Power-Glo, while good for plants, promotes algae growth. That might explain
why I have more algae than I used to, since I used other types of tubes in
the past.

Adding fertilizer directly into the substrate seems like a very good idea.
However, I didn't have that when my plants, including the Echinodorus, were
doing great. I wonder what's different now.

A stream of tiny bubbles from just one or even a few spots on a plant
could signify a damaged part of a leaf or a disintegrating one.

Oh. I thought it meant that a plant was doing so well and producing so much
oxygen that you could actually see it as a bubble stream. So you're saying
that the oxygen bubbles don't mean that they're doing really well so much as
that there's a lot of oxygen in the water in general? Like the way people
sweat more when it's really humid outside?

If the plant has decreased in size, I really think lack of light is the
limiting
factor to start off with.

I'm definitely going to do something about that soon. I'm really tired about
the lack of light, not only for my plants but also for the so-so effect on
the fish. There's only a very small area where they look nice, the light
refleclting on them in a pleasant way. Elsewhere they look rather dull,
unless I move the lamp around. The difference is obvious. Two lamps, one
more to the front and one more to the back, would probably help both the
fauna and flora of my aquarium. In the case of the faune it would be more a
matter of aesthetics, not health, but it counts.

An increased/growing fish load will reduce the oxygen saturation ablility
of
the tank over time

I've always had a fairly heavy fish load. At times I've had over 60 fish for
40 gallons. Of course, almost all of them were very small fish, like neons,
but still. Right now I have maybe 40 small fish, plus a pair of medium-sized
pearl gouramis.

IME an unpruned tank will allow plants to cover the surface or even just
taking up space in the middle of the tank ie pennywort, or heaps of baby
echinodorus' growing from a few runners from the one plant *significantly*
reduces growth/pearling of the mother/substrate lying plants from lack of
light even with 4 tubes over a 65G.

Hmm...I'll keep that in mind when I redo my aquarium and add more lights in
the near future.

Thank you very much for the information. I appreciate it.

Francois