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#1
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
Hi,
I've got a 42 UK gallon tank, sand substrate, DIY CO2 and a number of plants. ph is 7.6, GH and KH hover around 12 degrees. I'm new to this, and have had the tank for about 12 weeks. Initially I had a lot of plants (dont know all their names yet), and they all seem to be growing well. However I have had increasing trouble with the fine leaved plants such as elodea, cabomba etc. All of them seen to rot at the base and then just float up and swirl around in the circulation. The leaves etc seem fine, its just the base that rots. Any suggestions on how I can stop this ? TIA, Prakash. |
#2
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
I would wonder if you have enough light. As I recall, fine leaved plants
need relatively high light. I would suggest somewhere in the range of 2-3 watts per gallon. If you have just the standard light that came with the tank, you probably have too little light. Also, your water seems pretty hard for doing CO2. Bob "Prakash" wrote in message ... Hi, I've got a 42 UK gallon tank, sand substrate, DIY CO2 and a number of plants. ph is 7.6, GH and KH hover around 12 degrees. I'm new to this, and have had the tank for about 12 weeks. Initially I had a lot of plants (dont know all their names yet), and they all seem to be growing well. However I have had increasing trouble with the fine leaved plants such as elodea, cabomba etc. All of them seen to rot at the base and then just float up and swirl around in the circulation. The leaves etc seem fine, its just the base that rots. Any suggestions on how I can stop this ? TIA, Prakash. |
#3
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
Bob,
I've got 80 watts of light. The water is quite hard - actually in most of the UK what comes out of the tap is liquid cement. Does this cause a huge problem ? The plants seem to be growing fine.The elodea and the cabomba grow rapidly but then come off the bottom. The elodea has plenty of roots springing from the stem. Are these plants not supposed to be pushed into the sand ? Cheers, Prakash. "Bob Alston" wrote in message ... I would wonder if you have enough light. As I recall, fine leaved plants need relatively high light. I would suggest somewhere in the range of 2-3 watts per gallon. If you have just the standard light that came with the tank, you probably have too little light. Also, your water seems pretty hard for doing CO2. Bob "Prakash" wrote in message ... Hi, I've got a 42 UK gallon tank, sand substrate, DIY CO2 and a number of plants. ph is 7.6, GH and KH hover around 12 degrees. I'm new to this, and have had the tank for about 12 weeks. Initially I had a lot of plants (dont know all their names yet), and they all seem to be growing well. However I have had increasing trouble with the fine leaved plants such as elodea, cabomba etc. All of them seen to rot at the base and then just float up and swirl around in the circulation. The leaves etc seem fine, its just the base that rots. Any suggestions on how I can stop this ? TIA, Prakash. |
#4
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
"Prakash" wrote in message ... Bob, I've got 80 watts of light. The water is quite hard - actually in most of the UK what comes out of the tap is liquid cement. Does this cause a huge problem ? The plants seem to be growing fine.The elodea and the cabomba grow rapidly but then come off the bottom. The elodea has plenty of roots springing from the stem. Are these plants not supposed to be pushed into the sand ? Cheers, Prakash. I would assume with a sand sunstrate you are not running a UGF. In which case your setup is very similar to one of my tanks (except I don't have the CO2). I have no issue with growing things like Cabomba although it gets a bit "leggy". I think I'd need more light and maybe some CO2 to really get it to thicken up. Have you checked if you have enough Iron in the water? Are you feeding the plants regularly enough? Have you tried some root tab fertilizer? Only other thing might be a lack of light. Although you have 80W, what kind of bulbs are they & how old are they? Although they still work the effectiveness of most fluorescents decreases over time to the point that you should replace them at least once a year. One cheap option to increase the lighting on your tank is to buy some reflectors - about £7 each I seem to remember . Made a niticeable difference to both my tanks. Only other option I can think of would be that if you were a bit rough with it when you pushed it into the sand you might have crushed the bottoms of the stems in which case they would rot. If you are having trouble anchoring it try some plant weights. I. |
#5
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
Prakash wrote:
Hi, I've got a 42 UK gallon tank, sand substrate, DIY CO2 and a number of plants. ph is 7.6, GH and KH hover around 12 degrees. I'm new to this, and have had the tank for about 12 weeks. Initially I had a lot of plants (dont know all their names yet), and they all seem to be growing well. However I have had increasing trouble with the fine leaved plants such as elodea, cabomba etc. All of them seen to rot at the base and then just float up and swirl around in the circulation. The leaves etc seem fine, its just the base that rots. My experience in the states with elodea is that most specimens sold in pet stores (especially the chain stores) are not well off to begin with. I usually would buy some to nurse some new side sprouts out of (the "branching" new light green growth that will occur at a leaf whorl) and typically the old growth would start disintegrating away. The new growth though was quite healthy and would keep growing even under less than ideal conditions. So, with the elodea at least (never messed with camboda), look for the new growths and pinch them off from the original plant when they are a few inches long or when the original plant starts disintegrating, whichever comes first. If you aren't getting new growths, then that's another can of worms. You should also try prolonging the life of the old growth by pinching off any disintegrating portions as you notice it. I also let the majority of my elodea free-float as I seem to remember that trying to "root" it in the gravel would often lead to disintegration problems, but it's been a good 10 years since I last tried to root it in the gravel. Once it gets going well, you can tell when it's happy because this plant likes to pearl like there's no tomorrow when conditions suit it. I used to have a little 2 gal killi fish tank in a sunlight window (that was the only light source) with elodea and the streams of bubbles would be constant during the day, so it doesn't take much to make it happy. |
#6
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
Yeah I noticed when I went on holidays for two months to England all the
kettles around the country were chock a block full of lime/calcium deposits. *snip* "Prakash" wrote in message ... Bob, The water is quite hard - actually in most of the UK what comes out of the tap is liquid cement. Does this cause a huge problem ? |
#7
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
I have the same problem with some Golden Lloydiella, Aurea, in my 15
gallon tank, and their base have been rotting as well. Funny thing is only one bunch seems to be rotting while another bunch is fine. I have a UGF set up with 1x15w flouro light. Every other plant are growing fine, i have water lilies and few other plants as well. But only the aureas are rotting at the base when I plant them in gravel. So I"ve just let them float now. |
#8
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
I have the same problem with fine stemmed/leaved plants such as firl, etc.
Aurea, however is the happiest plant in the tank. But this is with 3.8 watts/gal. However, the KH is 16 and GH is 20, also liquid cement. Something about cambrian folded sediments. I expect GB is also some pushed up ancient seabed sediments. |
#9
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
LeighMo,
The tank dimensions are 120cm * 40 cm * 40 cm. The plants seem to grow allright - except they break off at the base. I tried bunching a few together and wrapping some plant wight round the base before pushing it into the sand - a few weeks later the separate stems started floating off, leaving the plant weight where it was I add some Nutrafin plant feed once every 15-20 days. Is that sufficient ? Cheers, Prakash. "LeighMo" wrote in message ... I've got 80 watts of light I think Bob's right; that may not be enough light. You have a US 50 gallon tank. So you have only 1.6 watts per gallon. That is on the low side for your average fine-leaved stem plant. It might help to plant the stems directly under the lights, well-seperated so that the light can get down to the bottoms of the plants. If that doesn't work, let the plants float, and get some plants that do better in low light to plant in the substrate. (Hygrophila will probably be okay with this lighting.) What are the dimensions of your tank, BTW? Leigh http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/ |
#10
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
i find that wrapping the stems with anything i've tried causes problems.
i've taken to spreading the stems out so they aren't bunched together too much, just laying them on top of the gravel then laying a small piece of slate over them for about 10 days. i just took the slate off a bunch of macaya today and it had lots of fine roots and no decaying. seems to work. jtm -- Remove NOSPAM for email replies "Prakash" wrote in message ... LeighMo, The tank dimensions are 120cm * 40 cm * 40 cm. The plants seem to grow allright - except they break off at the base. I tried bunching a few together and wrapping some plant wight round the base before pushing it into the sand - a few weeks later the separate stems started floating off, leaving the plant weight where it was I add some Nutrafin plant feed once every 15-20 days. Is that sufficient ? Cheers, Prakash. "LeighMo" wrote in message ... I've got 80 watts of light I think Bob's right; that may not be enough light. You have a US 50 gallon tank. So you have only 1.6 watts per gallon. That is on the low side for your average fine-leaved stem plant. It might help to plant the stems directly under the lights, well-seperated so that the light can get down to the bottoms of the plants. If that doesn't work, let the plants float, and get some plants that do better in low light to plant in the substrate. (Hygrophila will probably be okay with this lighting.) What are the dimensions of your tank, BTW? Leigh http://www.fortunecity.com/lavender/halloween/881/ |
#11
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How do I get fine leaved plants to grow ?
However, the water in Scotland is very soft and free of chlorine/flouride
etc! Its just plain water! "Tasslehoff" wrote in message u... Yeah I noticed when I went on holidays for two months to England all the kettles around the country were chock a block full of lime/calcium deposits. *snip* "Prakash" wrote in message ... Bob, The water is quite hard - actually in most of the UK what comes out of the tap is liquid cement. Does this cause a huge problem ? |
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