"Tony Volk" wrote in message
...
I believe Val needs to be in the substrate, and a nutrient-rich substrate
at
that. Certainly my Vals have not done too well when they weren't placed
in
a nutrient-rich substrate (in my case, coarse and fine gravel with
fertilizer tabs). Cheers,
I'm finding this out with my spiralis actually. I'm getting substrate
fertilizer balls next week and the Val. patch is getting one (hopefully I
can insert it without disturbing their roots too much).
I believe it thrives if potassium is prevalent. If it works then I'll get
some more because it looks great in the tank in the corner where it is and
the fish love swimming through it. It's also funny to watch the SAE's follow
the spiral around as they graze up the leaves.
The Val. in my tank has picked up quite significantly since I started daily
liquid fertilization about a week ago, but my male Honey Gourami has a
really stupid habit of swimming straight into the fertilizer when I add it
to the tank (he's too friendly) and I'm getting really worried that sooner
or later he's going to suffer micro-nutrient poisoning.
We'll see after I've added the substrate fertilizer and some more plants
whether I need to keep this daily liquid thing going or not. Hopefully I
won't and a weekly dose with water changes will be all that's required.
The liquid stuff I'm using states on the label that there is no phosphate or
nitrate in the mixture but I'm now getting green algae on the rocks, and
it's funny that it's only appeared since the diatoms went and the liquid
fertilizer started. Time to look at getting some Seachem Flourish me thinks
I'll leave it for now though, because it actually looks okay and the
SAE's like to have a chomp on it.
On the Tape Grass thread; I am going to try some Australian native Eel Grass
from a local garden centre. It's an Oz form of Val. apparently, but this lot
is going to be planted in washed river sand with high potassium tabs in it,
so I'll let y'all know how that goes because Val. hasn't been one of my most
startling successes to date and I'm sure it something I'm doing wrong - like
omitting substrate fertilizer from the start of the tank ;(
Oz
--
My Aquatic web Blog is at
http://members.optusnet.com.au/ivan.smith