I'm not quite sure how to start this journal, so I'm just gonna start with this 😉
I have had aquariums for ten+ years, keeping various types of fish and mostly sticking to low light plants, with a special fondness for rhizome plants, who always grew alright no matter what I did to them.
I found an old picture of my main tank back then, which seemed to do quite well, despite very little expertise in the way of plants, and being fertilized only when it struck my fancy and not with any sort of regularity.
I recently came out of a five year break from fishkeeping. Earlier this year I needed something to occupy my time and distract myself with, and so I pulled the old 180 liter out of storage along with what seemed like an unreasonable amount of fish-keeping accessories.
I set it up much like I used to do, with lots of driftwood and rhizome plants, and expected it to work out much like it had done in the old days. It didnt. The plants grew poorly and I had noticeable amounts of algae. Before my hiatus I barely had algae, so I figured maybe the lights needed replacing. As far as I could remember, the two T8 bulbs had about three years of use behind them, so this seemed like a good place to start.
While I was waiting for the new bulbs, an old familiar feeling started up. Some months had passed since I set up the tank, and my fingers were starting to itch. The kind of restless itching that makes you want to do over everything in the tank, to get a new fresh layout, and nothing can stop this itch once it takes hold. What you once thought of as a magnificent layout is suddenly unbearable to look at, and it is time for a big change.
This time, I decided, I wanted to try some stem plants. I researched some easy-ish varieties from Tropica, much of the driftwood was put away to make room for plants, and I brought home; Hygrophila difformis, Rotala rotundifolia, Ludwigia sp (palustris?) "Super Red", Staurogyne repens, Blyxa japonica, Nymphaea lotus, Vallisneria var "Biwaensis" and Pogostemon helferi.
From before I had; Microsorum "Windelov", Microsorum "Narrow", Bolbitis heudelotii, Anubias "petite", Weeping Moss and Salvinia oblongifolia.
I excitedly planted them all, and the only thing that happened was that the Ludwigia Super Red melted. And I mean melted, disintegrated. Nothing was growing. Not even the H. difformis! What on earth was this? I had kept H. difformis before and I knew that it would grow basically in a toilet bowl.
Something was very wrong in the aquarium. I started reading up more on plant care. The Super Red is such a beautiful plant, I am determined to make it grow for me eventually. My search for information lead me to plant forums, and I remembered fondly how much time I had spent on the aquarium forums before facebook was much of a thing. There is such a wealth of knowledge in the forums, and its nice to have somewhere to write down your thoughts and theories and get feedback on them.
So that leads me to this journal. I think I have a basic understanding of nutrients, light, algae etc now. A more in-depth understanding will hopefully follow, but you gotta start somewhere. I have been using Seachem Flourish, and assumed that it would cover the needs of the plants, since thats pretty much what it says on the bottle. Reading about NPK though, I looked more closely at the bottle and realised that it doesnt add much in the way of macros.
Therefore my working theory is that my water is lacking in nutrients, hence the journal title. Especially macro nutrients, since I had very few and small fish. At one point only 5 small fish in 180 liters of water, and frequent large water changes on top of that. Maybe I am totally wrong though, it is entirely possible and I look forward to finding out 🙂
I have ordered online an assortment of powdered fertilizers and I am in the process of getting more fish to help make nitrates. Last weekend saw the addition of 30 ember tetras, who have already shown to be very good at begging, eating, and pooping. I suspect the Seachem Matrix biomedia is stealing some of the scarce amount of nitrates that I have. After a week with no water changes the water sits at about 1 ppm Nitrate on a JBL test. I did read that hobby tests are unreliable though, so I dont know if this is useful information.
I will undoubtedly have tons of questions once the powders arrive
I cant wait to start mixing "potions" and experimenting.
The second batch of Ludwigia Super Red will be my teacher, since it seems to be the "wimpiest" species of the bunch 😀 Here is a picture of it, this is all from one pot from the LFS (amazing). About 1-2 cm of growth is "mine". Small, dark, a bit curly and weird looking.
If you read all of this then I apologise for the incoherent rambling and any grammar/spelling mistakes I may have made, and thank you for reading
I have had aquariums for ten+ years, keeping various types of fish and mostly sticking to low light plants, with a special fondness for rhizome plants, who always grew alright no matter what I did to them.
I found an old picture of my main tank back then, which seemed to do quite well, despite very little expertise in the way of plants, and being fertilized only when it struck my fancy and not with any sort of regularity.
I recently came out of a five year break from fishkeeping. Earlier this year I needed something to occupy my time and distract myself with, and so I pulled the old 180 liter out of storage along with what seemed like an unreasonable amount of fish-keeping accessories.
I set it up much like I used to do, with lots of driftwood and rhizome plants, and expected it to work out much like it had done in the old days. It didnt. The plants grew poorly and I had noticeable amounts of algae. Before my hiatus I barely had algae, so I figured maybe the lights needed replacing. As far as I could remember, the two T8 bulbs had about three years of use behind them, so this seemed like a good place to start.
While I was waiting for the new bulbs, an old familiar feeling started up. Some months had passed since I set up the tank, and my fingers were starting to itch. The kind of restless itching that makes you want to do over everything in the tank, to get a new fresh layout, and nothing can stop this itch once it takes hold. What you once thought of as a magnificent layout is suddenly unbearable to look at, and it is time for a big change.
This time, I decided, I wanted to try some stem plants. I researched some easy-ish varieties from Tropica, much of the driftwood was put away to make room for plants, and I brought home; Hygrophila difformis, Rotala rotundifolia, Ludwigia sp (palustris?) "Super Red", Staurogyne repens, Blyxa japonica, Nymphaea lotus, Vallisneria var "Biwaensis" and Pogostemon helferi.
From before I had; Microsorum "Windelov", Microsorum "Narrow", Bolbitis heudelotii, Anubias "petite", Weeping Moss and Salvinia oblongifolia.
I excitedly planted them all, and the only thing that happened was that the Ludwigia Super Red melted. And I mean melted, disintegrated. Nothing was growing. Not even the H. difformis! What on earth was this? I had kept H. difformis before and I knew that it would grow basically in a toilet bowl.
Something was very wrong in the aquarium. I started reading up more on plant care. The Super Red is such a beautiful plant, I am determined to make it grow for me eventually. My search for information lead me to plant forums, and I remembered fondly how much time I had spent on the aquarium forums before facebook was much of a thing. There is such a wealth of knowledge in the forums, and its nice to have somewhere to write down your thoughts and theories and get feedback on them.
So that leads me to this journal. I think I have a basic understanding of nutrients, light, algae etc now. A more in-depth understanding will hopefully follow, but you gotta start somewhere. I have been using Seachem Flourish, and assumed that it would cover the needs of the plants, since thats pretty much what it says on the bottle. Reading about NPK though, I looked more closely at the bottle and realised that it doesnt add much in the way of macros.
Therefore my working theory is that my water is lacking in nutrients, hence the journal title. Especially macro nutrients, since I had very few and small fish. At one point only 5 small fish in 180 liters of water, and frequent large water changes on top of that. Maybe I am totally wrong though, it is entirely possible and I look forward to finding out 🙂
I have ordered online an assortment of powdered fertilizers and I am in the process of getting more fish to help make nitrates. Last weekend saw the addition of 30 ember tetras, who have already shown to be very good at begging, eating, and pooping. I suspect the Seachem Matrix biomedia is stealing some of the scarce amount of nitrates that I have. After a week with no water changes the water sits at about 1 ppm Nitrate on a JBL test. I did read that hobby tests are unreliable though, so I dont know if this is useful information.
I will undoubtedly have tons of questions once the powders arrive
I cant wait to start mixing "potions" and experimenting.
The second batch of Ludwigia Super Red will be my teacher, since it seems to be the "wimpiest" species of the bunch 😀 Here is a picture of it, this is all from one pot from the LFS (amazing). About 1-2 cm of growth is "mine". Small, dark, a bit curly and weird looking.
If you read all of this then I apologise for the incoherent rambling and any grammar/spelling mistakes I may have made, and thank you for reading
A couple of minutes of sulking later, I started to remember all the info I got from reading the spray bar threads on the forum. My spray bar setup probably had way too many holes! 
At least im somewhat self aware 
