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Does this Hemianthous Cuba look healthy?

Jaap

Jaap

Member
Joined
30 Sep 2011
Messages
1,068
Location
Nicosia
Hello,

I have flooded this dry start Hemianthus Cuba set-up from the 1st of April so now its been flooded for 19 days.

I am dosing with EI and I am pretty sure I am overdosing.
I have done 4 water changes up until now.
The CO2 is high in the tank and filter causes the up-atomiser bubbles to be everywhere, with the drop checker colour being yellow since nothing live is in the tank.
There is also a false smell, a fishy stench.

I have BGA and Diatoms so I decided to start daily water changes and syphon some of the algae off the plants. I have done this twice and it helps a bit but i have uprooted many plants and I don't think I will be syphoning the plants again but I will continue with the water changes.

Furthermore, by first sight I don't think my HCC is healthy. It looks pale and yellow at places and some leaves look old and fragile.

Do you think that this HCC is healthy?

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Thanks
 
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Looks good, lots of new growth everywhere.

I had a similar set up with the same issues.

BGA is solved by upping your Phosphate dosing (an extra spoon should do it) and turning the lights down. If you're confident that you're over dosing already, the light is your only issue.

Don't bother with a black out. It will only come back. Antibiotics or Hydrogen Peroxide will not fix the underlying issues. Do the steps mentioned above, remove as much as much as you can by hand, and it will disappear within 6 weeks or so.
 
So if my phosphate levels are high then I just wait?

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As long as your lights aren't too bright, yes.

In my experience, lower light levels over a longer duration seem to be better than blasting them with intense light over a shorter duration.

After you've removed some, look for signs of it growing back over the next few days. If it's growing back, then the lights are still too bright.

Don't be fooled by all the pictures you see of beautiful aquascapes that have loads of light. The reality is that they are maintained with a lot less light than what you see in the pictures.
 
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11w compact fluorescent lamp over 20L...it can't be seen in the pics but I am worried about the pale/yellowish colour of the HCC...I don't get that bright green color...what might be wrong?

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I think that's just a little die-back from the flooding, not all parts of the plant can survive this initially.

Remove the yellow leafs if they start to look damaged before they rot and cause more problems. I wouldn't expect to see any more yellowing after 8 weeks from the date of flooding.

What kind of heater do you have, and what temp?
 
No heater...temp is around 18 degrees Celsius

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Hmm... Well I'm not sure what ill effects not having a heater has, but once you sort the lighting issue out, that can only be the last probabl cause. I think you should be all right though.

If you do get one, get one of these, they're awesome:

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Very low profile, good for small tanks where theres not much space. £20ish
 
Do u think I jave light issues with 11w over 20L?

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Forget whatever you've read about watts per gallon, its just a rough guide. You have to pay more attention to what your tank and plants are telling you. If they're telling you that you have Algae (regardless of type), it means too much light in combination with too few nutrients/CO2 deficiencies.

You've already ruled out nutrients and CO2, so yes, you definitely have light issues.
 
So after some BGA and some vrown algae I decided to do a blackout for 3 days. It worked like a charm. Obviously the plants have also suffered a little but the HC will bounve back I guess.

I did a 70% water change added all macros and micros co2 full blast but I don't see pearling as before. Is this because the HC is in shock from the blackout?

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If you want bubbles, add an air stone 😎

...but in all seriousness, as long as the plants are healthy who cares? Whatever you were doing in the first place to make them pearl was resulting in algae.

Prevention is always better than the cure. A 3 day blackout is just a quick fix to effectively put a plaster over the problem. If you haven't changed anything since, it's obviously going to be as it was. No doubt cured by another blackout?

The original picture of the HC looked fantastic and the yellowing is most likely due to the change between emersed and submerged growth.

Sorry if I missed it, can't seem to see anything, but what's your photoperiod?
 
Photoperiod was 5 hours 11w over 20L and now its 4 hours because I also had problem with brown algae that suggested too much light. Also BGA comes when nitrates are low so even though I can't see how that happened, I am now dosing a good amount of KNO3 to be sure....
 
Nope...some leaves have melted and some have holes in them...must be from the blackout
 
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