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Health of my plants. Problematic alternathera reinekii

Kostas said:
I have no idea what I'm reading lol. Care to elaborate the chart?
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Go to bottom of chart and look up how far from the substrate your lights are which in your case is about 24 inches then follow the line of the graph for T5 tubes then in your case x4 so blue band low light, red band medium light and yellow high. You would be getting into medium to high lighting. If you have reflectors then you're off the scale. I certainly wouldn't have them on for 9 hrs while you have issues. Try maybe seven tops and put the drop checker lower down maybe 4" up from the gravel to see what levels you have down there. I might be wrong and it's hard to tell from the video but you seem to just have a small spray bar as the out let? Either way there doesn't look like there's much movement of water going on.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Go to bottom of chart and look up how far from the substrate your lights are which in your case is about 24 inches then follow the line of the graph for T5 tubes then in your case x4 so blue band low light, red band medium light and yellow high. You would be getting into medium to high lighting. If you have reflectors then you're off the scale. I certainly wouldn't have them on for 9 hrs while you have issues. Try maybe seven tops and put the drop checker lower down maybe 4" up from the gravel to see what levels you have down there. I might be wrong and it's hard to tell from the video but you seem to just have a small spray bar as the out let? Either way there doesn't look like there's much movement of water going on.
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Thank u ill do that. The circulation comes from 3 sources. The wave pump (I think its called wave pump) on top of the glass diffuser on the back that's facing left. Another pump around 1000l/h that goes into the co2 reactor and comes back into the water from a green pipe in top. And the "flute" from the filter

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Ok, I could see the carpet grass swaying but not the stems towards the back so maybe look at your circulation. FYI T5 tubes come in two flavours, HO (high output) NO (normal output) if you have HO that's a serious amount of light you're putting over there.
 
AverageWhiteBloke said:
Ok, I could see the carpet grass swaying but not the stems towards the back so maybe look at your circulation. FYI T5 tubes come in two flavours, HO (high output) NO (normal output) if you have HO that's a serious amount of light you're putting over there.
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I'll check them tomorrow. Actually give me a minute or two I think I have pics of them

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Just watched a couple of your videos.

A few instant thoughts

- you have high light as pointed out above and h it on along time.

- very little plant mass (hardly any to speak of in fact). Need to plant much much heavier.

- co2 diffuser is small for tank, in line would be much better.

- need a bigger spray bar, full length would be easy. You have areas receiving no flow, a few spots with huge flow.

- I don’t know what filter you are using. Consider the 10 X turnover guideline but also where that flow is going. 2 X small wave makers under the spray bar each placed a third way along pointing forward will be better distribution of flow. These combined with full length spray bar.

- put co2 on timer to come on 4 hours before lights and off 1 hour before light off will save gas.

In short, you have very few plants, dosing ei and co2 but the nutrients aren’t moving around evenly.

apologies if I sound negative, don’t mean to. Trying to be constructive 🙂
 
The problem with having different outlets of pumps all coming in at different angles is the jets of water from them tends to bounce off each other and cancel out the streams so try and get them circulating water or all heading in one direction.
 
papa_cee said:
Hi I had 4 x t5 tubes and nothing but trouble, reduced to 2 x t5 with better success. To start, I would reduce light and increase plant mass with easy fast growing plants. Twice weekly 50% water changes and observe for a couple of weeks then report back on the progress.
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Was you tank 60cm deep? As just stating how many T5 you had doesn't inform us of anything need tank size and T5 wattage at least as well as how many😉
 
Siege said:
Just watched a couple of your videos.

A few instant thoughts

- you have high light as pointed out above and h it on along time.

- very little plant mass (hardly any to speak of in fact). Need to plant much much heavier.

- co2 diffuser is small for tank, in line would be much better.

- need a bigger spray bar, full length would be easy. You have areas receiving no flow, a few spots with huge flow.

- I don’t know what filter you are using. Consider the 10 X turnover guideline but also where that flow is going. 2 X small wave makers under the spray bar each placed a third way along pointing forward will be better distribution of flow. These combined with full length spray bar.

- put co2 on timer to come on 4 hours before lights and off 1 hour before light off will save gas.

In short, you have very few plants, dosing ei and co2 but the nutrients aren’t moving around evenly.

apologies if I sound negative, don’t mean to. Trying to be constructive 🙂
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Don't worry u don't sound negative. I really appreciate you spending your time for my problems.
The co2 is already replaced with an in-line aqua medic reactor. Running on its own 1000l pump.
The filter is the eheim pro 4 600
I'll work on the plants
I can't be bothered with a solenoid for the co2 although I have 1. My canister lasts for around 2 months anyways so it's ok
I'll try to fix the circulation

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One issue with that chart is that it assumes as the additional lamps are added, they are still lighting the same area
- which is physically impossible of course - look at Sanjay Joshi lighting articles showing the actual area of light dispersion for various light sources for a much more realistic (& accurate) representation 😉

Depending upon how 2 (& more) adjacent T5 lamps are installed & reflectors (& reflector material) used, the increase in measured PAR may be substantially less than twice that of the single T5
(sorry no links as I wasn’t all that interested the first time around when I waded through the lighting literature 🙄 )

I agree that plant mass is low, but suspect plant access may also be a challenge, I’d look to add in any fast growing stem plants (not a floating plant fan as I find them oppressive 😳)

Looking at the substrate area of the tank, I see significant (brown) algae

I don’t see algae crew in the video - add Clithon corona snails, Nerite snails, small blue “mystery” snails, shrimp, otocinclus

Daily water change to lift & remove as much algae as possible - wave your hand just above substrate, plants etc
(George Farmer shows this clearly in his maintenance videos)

Re moving plants - try to do this in the first day or so only, then wait until plants are settled & growing well, otherwise you disturb plant root development & there is a limited amount of energy stored in existing plant stems/leaf structure for these restarts

Looking at your Alternanthera (doesn’t look like A reinicki form I’m familiar with re leaf structure is generally more pointed in both submerse & emerse growth), it’s sending out mid stem roots, so definitely trying, ignore leaf loss, stop moving plant, make sure it has enough gentle flow & space around it, sufficient light, CO2, etc

24/7 CO2 can be beneficial especially if there is significant ambient lighting but also ensure there is good oxygenation as plants also need O to build new leafs ... generally if fish are surviving, oxygen levels won’t be an issue for plants

Surface rippling will prevent/limit surface scum
 


I tried to fix the circulation a bit. Does this look better or I created a washing machine with fish?

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Yes looks much better.

Now concentrate on housekeeping. Wave your hand over the substrate when you do a water change, get all the detritus up and clean the diatoms from the glass, do a couple of water changes on the trot. Get it all. Will be a good base starting point. 🙂
 
Siege said:
Yes looks much better.

Now concentrate on housekeeping. Wave your hand over the substrate when you do a water change, get all the detritus up and clean the diatoms from the glass, do a couple of water changes on the trot. Get it all. Will be a good base starting point. 🙂
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Wow thx for the quick reply!
I already did a water change today and got as much detritus as I could. That's why the tank is full of bits. I gave up on the aqua medic reactor. I don't seem to have a leak whatsoever but the drop checkers is dark green to blue when I use it. Back to the glass diffuser. I also removed the bio balls in it but I dont trust it

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Every water change, drop water by an inch then clean the glass. Then carry on with water change and sweep up all the detritus, wave hand over substrate and brush plant leaves.

If you are using hoses can do a running water change (draining and filling at same time) This works very well. If not do another water change,

You want to get all the rubbish out. Do it well to begin with, tank will be cleaner and future water changes will be a lot quicker.
 
Ok OP please listen. Alternanthera is a fickle one. Alto gave you solid advice. STOP MOVING THE PLANT. Stick to a low photoperiod at first and only dose CO2 1 hour before lights on and stop 1 hr before lights off. Alternanthera will have a long period where it adjusts. It will look dead, all leaves will fall off, green spot algae will grow on leaves, leaves will look twisted, it will look like sticks. Just wait. Don't touch it. This plant spends a whole month just establishing roots about 15cm in all directions. It wants iron magnesium and potassium. Get root tabs for it (easy life will do). After that, it will try to make leaves. If your plant is not in PERFECT health, your shrimp and nerite snails will shred it. I lost £30 worth of alternanthera to amano shrimp - they sense when plants are not doing well because plant cell walls break and leak substances they can smell, a sick plant is sick way before it looks sick and they will shred it. I now keep ludwigia rubin instead, look similar, grows like a monster for me and amanos leave it alone.
So. Don't Move It! Don't introduce nerites and amano shrimp (try other snails or cherry shrimps or ottocinclus), get root tabs, don't panic.
Your hairgrass will look like blahblahblahblah for a while. The leaves you started out with will probably die off and look sick, but that's not what you care about. You care about it sending runners. If it sends one runner per clump, you're golden. Staurogyne will look like blahblahblahblah for a while too. In needs to form roots and extend them deeply. This takes it 2 weeks or more.
Stop obsessively cleaning your substrate. Fish poop has to accumulate in there. A bacterial barrier will form on the top and subsequent layers will form under it. These barriers will protect fish from what's underneath (anaerobic processes) and keep the goodies for the plant roots.(too much to elaborate on this, read Diana Walstad book.) Hovering your hose 1-3 cm above substrate when you do maintenance is enough.
 
A huge problem I see is people thinking that if a plant has long roots, then the plant can be moved and the roots still work. Well not really. The thick roots that we can easily see are conduits. They don't do much nutrient absorption. Nutrient uptake happens through almost invisible capillary roots that are thinner than hair. They extend and attach to substrate. This process takes a while and every time we upset it, it has to be redone almost from scratch. If you tug on a stem plant with a large root network, you just broke off thousands of micro connections and made it bleed plant blood into the substrate. This is why we see people in videos chopping off roots. It's almost easier for the plant to establish a new root system than to fix a damaged existing one. Extending roots costs the plant stored nutrients. If it doesn't have a rhyzome or bulb or fleshy parts to store those nutrients, making it renew roots too often will kill it. So that's why planning a layout is very important. Because changing it is very taxing to plants, stressful to fish and leads to long recovery times where our aquaria do not look "optimal".
 
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