What is the height of your tank ? If its too tall, lights are mounted too high or reflectors are absent then it could be that your lights arent reaching the substrate. Also, bump up the CO2. On such a large tank I think a reactor would work better.
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Frustrated..changed to bigger tank and can't grow plants anymore!!!
- Thread starter curefan
- Start date
ok....an update....
My LFS asked me to drop in some water samples as they have some high tech water testing equipment seemingly.
They said my tank water has a GH of 10, of which 97.5% is calcuim and the rest being magnesium.
He reckons my plant growing problems lie here with the content of Ca being too high, saying there should be more magnesium.
Anyone have any thoughts on this being an issue and if it is an issue what steps should i take to solve it??
Would adding Mg be any use or will the fact still remain that I still have to much Ca?
Thanks, Dave.
My LFS asked me to drop in some water samples as they have some high tech water testing equipment seemingly.
They said my tank water has a GH of 10, of which 97.5% is calcuim and the rest being magnesium.
He reckons my plant growing problems lie here with the content of Ca being too high, saying there should be more magnesium.
Anyone have any thoughts on this being an issue and if it is an issue what steps should i take to solve it??
Would adding Mg be any use or will the fact still remain that I still have to much Ca?
Thanks, Dave.
Edvet
Member
I would love to see the high tech testing equipment of an LFS...................(sorry if that comes over as sarcastic...........................but it is......😎)
X3NiTH
Member
- Joined
- 13 Apr 2014
- Messages
- 1,668
Doubt it. I have 22degree Clark water (scale on everything, liquid rock) and eventually after much CO2 faffing and dosing EI, are getting most plants growing fine algae and melt free and most days pearling away at end of the day.
Ceg will be along to show you his fine collection of plants growing in hard water in a minute....🙂
I suspect you are looking to blame your water for lack of CO2 skill.
Hi all,
cheers Darrel
It can be, but probably not in your case because you are already adding magnesium.
cheers Darrel
Edvet
Member
Plants tell something different?
Try to do a pH profile?
How does tap compare to tank?
I'd give additional Mg a try - it's a cheap "test", Ca & Mg often compete for same transport pathways so it's not that you have no Mg, but that the LFS is suggesting limited uptake/availability due to competition.
You might also add some peat to your filter but I don't see that as being particularly effective re the volumes involved, if you ran the change water through a peat filled prefilter it might have some effect but then RO is much more efficient.
You might gradually lower tank to GH ~5 using RO & see how plants respond, while increased CO2 levels may be "the answer", I have CO2 sensitive fish & just look for the balance, many plants tolerate lower CO2 levels better than others.
I'd give additional Mg a try - it's a cheap "test", Ca & Mg often compete for same transport pathways so it's not that you have no Mg, but that the LFS is suggesting limited uptake/availability due to competition.
You might also add some peat to your filter but I don't see that as being particularly effective re the volumes involved, if you ran the change water through a peat filled prefilter it might have some effect but then RO is much more efficient.
You might gradually lower tank to GH ~5 using RO & see how plants respond, while increased CO2 levels may be "the answer", I have CO2 sensitive fish & just look for the balance, many plants tolerate lower CO2 levels better than others.
oops - just went back & reread first post
Big, deep tanks do provide a challenge (though it seems the Green Machine should be good at these ... of course if you listen to the videos, James finds some of your chosen plants to be an issue in the big tanks re lifting from the substrate re shallow root system)
look at your PAR at the substrate & CO2 at the substrate ... I suspect you're looking for that stunning carpet that does so well in high tech systems
Big, deep tanks do provide a challenge (though it seems the Green Machine should be good at these ... of course if you listen to the videos, James finds some of your chosen plants to be an issue in the big tanks re lifting from the substrate re shallow root system)
As stated in OP, i did a PH profile .....7.0 before co2 and drops to min of 6.3
Edvet
Member
Ah sorry misread that. It looks OK at your KH. That would leave distribution/flow.
Could you do some pic's, so we can see the situation?
Could you do some pic's, so we can see the situation?
yeah, ill try and get some up shortly......
Sorry in the delay on getting pic up....as you can see all dead plants cleared out...Co2 now off....no point in wasting it. Was talking to Green Machine....they reckon the problem was that i wasn't using the 4 bulbs initially as the tank is 2ft deep and said those plants need more light....well they do know what they are talking about, right?
Anyway, here is a pic, you may see something obvious that i missed...
GreenNeedle
Member
No comment other than everyone else in this thread has said the opposite 🙂
From the picture above light looks pretty bright to me and considering they look like pink lights then it should look less bright than I am used to. i.e. daylight tubes look brighter than pink lights for the power.
I think you answered your own doubt above in your first posts where you said you tried all 4 and it made no difference!!!
In my opinion you are still chasing a CO2 / flow issue and judging by the filter tubes / spraybar maybe a maintenance issue too as they look like they are a little gunked up. Maybe from disturbance and they are fine inside but just going form the picture 🙂
That spraybar is far too short for the tank. I see the 2 intakes in there. Are they both from the same filter or have you already added the second you asked about? If so where is the inflow from the second filter.
Also do you have a picture from the setup when you had just planted? (I'll have a look at your other posts but thought I'd ask in case I don't find one)
As there are basically no plants in there at the moment it is a good idea to turn the CO2 off as it isn't needed. I do however notice the DC at the top there. Is that where it was before?
GreenNeedle
Member
OK Just to clear a few things up that I read on other threads 🙂
You were asking about DC's that stay green. This is pretty normal without night time aeration. Mine will be about grass green before the CO2 comes on and be limeade in the photoperiod. Fish and shrimp are OK so all's good.
In the same thread the last post says that you have your powerhead pointing down slightly thinking it would help in the distribution. No-one answered your post there. The poster saying he had his pointing up is using that powerhead only after the lights go off and not for distribution. Like some people will raise their Lily pipes up during lights off to gas some CO2 off.
--------------------------------------
You mention in another thread that your bulbs are '3 years old, Do I really need to change them?'. I'll put my tin hat on and say 'Probably not but without Par testing I couldn't guarantee it. If they were T8 (or T5) on a magnetic ballast then definitely yes however if they are T5 or T5HO on electronic ballasts the research would suggest that contrary to many fishy folk's beliefs there output would have only marginally diminished in 8760 hours (365 days @ 8 hours for 3 years.)
The article I will link to explains that for their example of a 4 tube overhead bay application , over a time frame of 40% of the lamps life (35,000 hours x 40% = 14000 hours) That the Lumens output will have only diminished in their example from 20,000 to 19,000.
http://lightingcontrolsassociation.org/fluorescent-retrofits-for-highlow-bay-applications/
It was one of the articles I raised on the barrreport years ago in one of my then frequent internet rants. lol. eek 2009. Memories.
http://www.barrreport.com/forum/bar...2-t5ho-does-not-degrade-as-much-as-we-thought
Now we can't take those figures as gospel for your scenario because you will have different tubes to their example, you are using more frequent starts (Their's is based on the fixture being turned on and off once a day for a 12 hour period. And you will have a different ballast as well. They could have a shorter lamp life. I would assume that Arcadia use pretty good ballasts and tubes but have no idea how true that would be.
We can argue about the fact they state of the lamplife of the tubes they have used being 35,000 hours but that figure is by the by. We don't care how long the lamplife is for their calculations because they have judged their measurement on a calculation of 40% which we can say is a test after 14000 hours of use. Doesn't matter if the lamps then burnt out 3 weeks later as we have that measurement @ 14,000 hours.
We can however argue that Lumens are not the measurement we are after but I would say it is safe to assume that if the Lumens had dimished by 5% in that spell that PAR wouldn't be that far off the same amount.
So No you shouldn't have to change the tubes if they are quality and if the unit is quality however no-one can say that for sure without a PAR meter and I will be the only one that will say you don't need to change 3 year old tubes 🙂
However you can if you want to see if it makes any difference. What I would say though is that you should have been able to use 2 on their own even at your depth and have those plants growing fine if the CO2 was right so even if they have degrade massively then having 4 on should have been matching or outperforming 2 new ones.
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Another thing is forget the 2ft tall tank measurement. What you need to talk about is the distance from substrate to water surface and also distance from substrate to light.
i.e. My tank is 45cm tall but the water surface is only 37cm above the substrate at it's lowest level. The Light is 53cm above the substrate. Monte Carlo and HM thriving under 1.3WPG Chinese Knock Off LED lighting. That is 6 hours photoperiod @ 1.3WPG with an hour at the start and end with only 0.4WPG. This tank is 144 Litres.
Incidentally that tank is massively underpower in terms of filtering compared to most on here. It only has an Eheim 2224 (700lph) on it with an Up atomizer (Like you) and external heater hindering the flow.
------------------------------------------------------
Couldn't find a picture of your tank at setup stage or just after. Would help enormously to see it at that point 🙂
You were asking about DC's that stay green. This is pretty normal without night time aeration. Mine will be about grass green before the CO2 comes on and be limeade in the photoperiod. Fish and shrimp are OK so all's good.
In the same thread the last post says that you have your powerhead pointing down slightly thinking it would help in the distribution. No-one answered your post there. The poster saying he had his pointing up is using that powerhead only after the lights go off and not for distribution. Like some people will raise their Lily pipes up during lights off to gas some CO2 off.
--------------------------------------
You mention in another thread that your bulbs are '3 years old, Do I really need to change them?'. I'll put my tin hat on and say 'Probably not but without Par testing I couldn't guarantee it. If they were T8 (or T5) on a magnetic ballast then definitely yes however if they are T5 or T5HO on electronic ballasts the research would suggest that contrary to many fishy folk's beliefs there output would have only marginally diminished in 8760 hours (365 days @ 8 hours for 3 years.)
The article I will link to explains that for their example of a 4 tube overhead bay application , over a time frame of 40% of the lamps life (35,000 hours x 40% = 14000 hours) That the Lumens output will have only diminished in their example from 20,000 to 19,000.
http://lightingcontrolsassociation.org/fluorescent-retrofits-for-highlow-bay-applications/
It was one of the articles I raised on the barrreport years ago in one of my then frequent internet rants. lol. eek 2009. Memories.
http://www.barrreport.com/forum/bar...2-t5ho-does-not-degrade-as-much-as-we-thought
Now we can't take those figures as gospel for your scenario because you will have different tubes to their example, you are using more frequent starts (Their's is based on the fixture being turned on and off once a day for a 12 hour period. And you will have a different ballast as well. They could have a shorter lamp life. I would assume that Arcadia use pretty good ballasts and tubes but have no idea how true that would be.
We can argue about the fact they state of the lamplife of the tubes they have used being 35,000 hours but that figure is by the by. We don't care how long the lamplife is for their calculations because they have judged their measurement on a calculation of 40% which we can say is a test after 14000 hours of use. Doesn't matter if the lamps then burnt out 3 weeks later as we have that measurement @ 14,000 hours.
We can however argue that Lumens are not the measurement we are after but I would say it is safe to assume that if the Lumens had dimished by 5% in that spell that PAR wouldn't be that far off the same amount.
So No you shouldn't have to change the tubes if they are quality and if the unit is quality however no-one can say that for sure without a PAR meter and I will be the only one that will say you don't need to change 3 year old tubes 🙂
However you can if you want to see if it makes any difference. What I would say though is that you should have been able to use 2 on their own even at your depth and have those plants growing fine if the CO2 was right so even if they have degrade massively then having 4 on should have been matching or outperforming 2 new ones.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Another thing is forget the 2ft tall tank measurement. What you need to talk about is the distance from substrate to water surface and also distance from substrate to light.
i.e. My tank is 45cm tall but the water surface is only 37cm above the substrate at it's lowest level. The Light is 53cm above the substrate. Monte Carlo and HM thriving under 1.3WPG Chinese Knock Off LED lighting. That is 6 hours photoperiod @ 1.3WPG with an hour at the start and end with only 0.4WPG. This tank is 144 Litres.
Incidentally that tank is massively underpower in terms of filtering compared to most on here. It only has an Eheim 2224 (700lph) on it with an Up atomizer (Like you) and external heater hindering the flow.
------------------------------------------------------
Couldn't find a picture of your tank at setup stage or just after. Would help enormously to see it at that point 🙂
Thanks supercoley for your thoughts. I'll see if I took a pic after planting later....Just in from a night shift
You say spray is too short, but if I make it longer, I'm gonna make my flow even worse , right? Flow wouldn't be the strongests out of it even though there are no blocks and yes, those 2 intakes are from the one single filter.
The drop checker is where it was but I did at one point move it to the bottom of the tank and its reaction was the same.
cheers, Dave.
You say spray is too short, but if I make it longer, I'm gonna make my flow even worse , right? Flow wouldn't be the strongests out of it even though there are no blocks and yes, those 2 intakes are from the one single filter.
The drop checker is where it was but I did at one point move it to the bottom of the tank and its reaction was the same.
cheers, Dave.
GreenNeedle
Member
If you make the spraybar longer the flow will not reduce at all. The force the water comes out of the holes will reduce yes 🙂. If you want to get really technical you could buy a full length pipe the same size and make smaller holes in it to equate to the same force over it's length but that is in IMO getting over the top for something that will make no difference. If anything the flow might increase IF it was being restricted at all by the spraybar because it will reduce a restriction.
I would personally either buy another spraybar and link it with hose or make a full length one. You could even buy a cheapo spraybar of that length. I wouldn't worry too much about the filter pressure coming out of those holes. If it is lower pressure full length it might help you in allowing you to point it downward and therefore pointing the CO2 downwards.
You have plenty of power to sort out circulation in your Tunze's. Look at the filter as doing filtering and injecting and use the Tunze's to move the CO2 around.
I would have the spraybar running the length of the tank with the same size holes, The same amount of water will come out but at lower force, point it as much downward as possible without it blowing the substrate around and then with the poiwerheads move them around until you are happy the CO2 is moving nicely around the tank.
I would personally either buy another spraybar and link it with hose or make a full length one. You could even buy a cheapo spraybar of that length. I wouldn't worry too much about the filter pressure coming out of those holes. If it is lower pressure full length it might help you in allowing you to point it downward and therefore pointing the CO2 downwards.
You have plenty of power to sort out circulation in your Tunze's. Look at the filter as doing filtering and injecting and use the Tunze's to move the CO2 around.
I would have the spraybar running the length of the tank with the same size holes, The same amount of water will come out but at lower force, point it as much downward as possible without it blowing the substrate around and then with the poiwerheads move them around until you are happy the CO2 is moving nicely around the tank.
