plantnoobdude
Member
The pedicellata seems to be improving, I wonder if the less frequent water changes are promoting more stable conditions which it likes. Tank looks really 👍
-
You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up
90P High Light (Plants are happy, Algae are happy too)
- Thread starter erwin123
- Start date
Thanks to your experience with less frequent water changes, I had to confidence to try it as well. Weekly water changes are probably for those who dose EI
Fortnightly Water Change/Maintenance Update
Nothing new to report, just more of the same. Keeping maintenance to a minimum and hoping the plants don't stunt
Furcata is not doing well, M. Tuberculatum is nice and reddish-pink and good contrast to the coppery red M. Roraima
Continuing my daily 1ml of APT EI + 1ml of Tropica daily.
Fortnightly update. Nothing much to report. Getting more algae (eg: on the B. Salzmanii and L. Senegalensis which I haven't trimmed for some time) . Also planning to pay attention to the Furcata. Fortunately the A. Pedicatella are problem free.
Fortnightly update. Nothing much to report. Maintenance consisted of ripping out the R. Macandra in the front and replanting, and assorted trimming. I find that the M. Tuberculatum likes to branch out a lot which makes it messier than the M. Roraima which branches less frequently and has thicker stems so they are more "vertical." I might be 'retiring' M. Tuberculatum in favour of M .Roraima because the latter is easier to maintain. I have one Furcata stem at the back that is growing very nicely compared to the Furcatas in front which got hit by algae. Something to sort out when I have the time.
The 'what happens when you don't do maintenance for 2 wks' update. I just yanked out a whole bunch of plants and will let them grow out again.... I do have algae on the Bacopa Salzmannii so I may have to work on those but I am not hugely bothered. I worry that I may have removed too many M. Roraimas because leaving behind a majority of M. Tuberculatum ... which, though they are nice and pink, don't have strong enough stems to go straight near the Lily pipe outflow.....
I am unfortunately busy at work and missed the fortnightly maintenance. Plan to do some maintenance next week. Decided to take some photos from the top of the tank so that I don't have to scrape algae of the glass to take the photo.
In terms of dosing, I've gone to dosing Tropica Specialised 1 pump daily , and occasionally a few drops of APT EI , as less ferts is probably better since the tank has been without maintenance for a few weeks.
Fantastic.
Much needed maintenance done. This is the 2nd week after switching to mainly dosing with TSN. Plants seem ok with the leaner approach. I don't think lean dosing has anything to do with how red the L. 'Meta' look but they are the reddest I've seen in a while
Also, look at the amount of Syngonanthus I have to dump - if I was dosing EI the amount would probably be out of control....I removed most of the Bacopa Salzmannii purple since the stems were not really noticeable, being crowded out on both sides, and gave more space to the A. Pedicatella.
On the left side, there seems to be an easy way to distinguish M. Roraima from M. Tuberculatum. Tuberculatum seem to be the stems with the gas bubbles on the leaves (and also more 'pink') , M. Roraima, ever since I had them in this tank, never seems to have gas bubbles on them (and more 'coppery').
Fortnightly maintenance and update
L. Sphaerocarpa sprouted a sideshoot which I replanted. Hope it survives.
C. Furcata might actually be reviving. I have no evidence whether change of dosing regime has anything to do with it, so I won't speculate.
Tank seems stable and in a 'more of the same mode' . Plants behaving the same, algae about the same.
Fortnightly maintenance/water change seems to be a sweet spot.
2 weeks really flies by and its time to do some maintenance. I am trimming it right down because I'll be going overseas next month.
2nd photos shows a bunch of stems that I harvested from a single parent stem where the sideshoots just grew and grew (hard to believe these stems were sideshoots of the parent).
3rd photo shows what happens if there is not enough light. The sideshoot remains green. Hard to believe its the same plant as the yellow guys that are hovering over it.
Plant news
I am quite happy that the C. Furcata on the left is making some progress when I compare the latest photo to 2 weeks ago. I removed more M. Tuberculatum to make room for more L. Meta and A. Pedicatella (I said I wanted to remove all the Meta in an earlier post, leaving just 2 stems, but they grow like weeds but at least they are relatively 'straight'. I am having problems with the M. Tuberculatum bending and brancing
On the extreme left of the tank are a couple of Cuphea which behave like my L. Senegalensis, i.e. they shed all their lower leaves. I will probably get rid of them in favour of Furcata if the latter makes new sideshoots.
Fertilisation
Tropica Specialised Nutrition might be expensive diluted water, but the A. Pedicatella seem to be happy with it so I've settled on it. My remainder of my APT EI bottle is used to feed my lowtech tank.
Illustration of how I use my UVC bulb during water change. After maintenance, I run the UVC for a few hours to zap floating algae /spores that were scraped off the glass but not caught by the water change.
Since the Filter outlet is on the left, a fair amount of water is pushed past the bulb.
There is a 180 degree 'shield' and I also clip a cloth on the front of the tank so I don't see the bulb.
I found it reduced the amount of algae I had to scrape off the glass on the next maintenance day, but YMMV.
The aquarium lights were not on so this is lit by a combination of daylight and room lighting. I love the yellows of the Ammannias and to me that is how I evaluate my LED lights. I prefer the yellows to be as natural as possible rather than orangey-red
Returned from a trip to USA. Did some maintenance. Will be flying to UK next week. Replaced the R. Macandra Narrow Leaf with R. Macandra 'green'. Decided to remove the Tuberculatum because it didn't grow straight and neatly in the presence of a Lily pipe. Just replanted some A. Gold to take its space as the plant was getting crowded.
Was away in the UK. No maintenance for 3 weeks. The slightly greenish tint is primarily due to me not knowing how to operate the Week Aqua manual mode correctly, but there is probably a fair bit of algae on the back wall of the tank.
Quick update, finally scraped the algae off the glass and did some replanting. Comparing with the previous photo, one of the C. Furcata stems has been growing.
The S. Macrocaulon is going to hit the waterline soon so I thought I would get in a photo before I hack it down.
An update brief update. I removed the Syngonanthus and replanted 1 small stem right at the back. Forgot to remove floating leaves before taking photo 😅
I planning to move from a fortnightly to a once in 3 weeks maintenance regime so I plan to only keep the slower growing plants.
C. Furcata is growing nicely and slowly and I should have a sideshoot to replant.
L.Sphaerocarpa is a nice and slow grower. I have to wait months for a sideshoot to appear.
R Blood Red is a bit of a weed but it is nearly indestructible and easily hacked down so I consider it a low maintenance plant for those that are not looking for a perfectly neat bush
But most of the tank will just be A. Pedicatella because I don't have to do anything special and it grows slow and steady I had no CO2 for 3 days but they didn't stunt in the meantime. 😅
3-weekly tank maintenance and update (I depend on this thread to remind me when I did my last water change
)Had to change the ceramic insert on my Qanvee M2 inline diffuser. After insertion, did not tighten enough and/or O-ring has degraded, resulted in small CO2 leak (even though no water came out). If I didn't fix it I would be running a huge bps and wondering how come so little CO2 mist...
My attempt at overhead photography. Ludwigia Sphaerocarpa has coloured up nicely.
I also added a new plant. I give myself a 50/50 chance of the plant surviving. 2hr aquarist says it needs a very clean tank to grow well but my maintenance schedule is currently once every 3 weeks....
Last edited:
