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melting stems is it always lack of CO2??

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paulsouthuk

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22 Oct 2012
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50
recently had a delivery of plants which included an unamed cutting as a bonus. I have one freshwater pro and one plant pro tube over my 150l tank. CO2 is showing fine with my double drop checker. flow id via an aquamanta 400 which conforms to the x10 rule. I have a CO2 reactor and the tank has quite alot of very fine bubbles of CO2. Another plant i bought Sphaerocaryum malaccense is busily pearling away. Any ideas?????
 
They could have been crushed during shipping.
 
Only 95.84% of the time it's due to poor CO2. Plants are a better indicator of CO2 concentration levels than any dropchecker can ever dream of being.

Cheers,
 
So do I turn up the CO2 its running at 1 to 2 bubbles per second. Do I trim back to viable stem? Thanks for your advise so far!!
 
Hi mate,
Yes turn it up, but be wary of harming the fish. If it is a new delivery of plants then it could easily be that those plants were grown emersed, which means that the leaves are not optimized for life under water. Untill new submerged leaves grow, the plant will struggle, while other plants that have been in the tank for a while do just fine.

The best thing to do is to reduce the light intensity to give them a better chance/ This slows the growth rates of the other plants but that not really a big deal. After a few weeks the intensity can be restored.

So I would do both things, reduce the intensity if possible and increase CO2 while keeping an eye on the fish.

Cheers,
 
Thank you ceg I have now turned up the CO2 and will monitor the fish. I'll take reflectors off the tubes also. I'm thinking of rescaping after learning on this forum. I feel that my KBL monado substrate isn't really that great. I was thinking of stripping the tank down and use john innes no3 with added peat and capping with ada amazonia that has already been in an aquarium for 12 months. Does the ADA amazonia have any issues with being reused I can't see it will. I bought a tank cheaply and guy left it in, bonus!!!!
 
The plants were bought from this forum so I think were grown under water. But they are rare so the guy said. Other plants he sold me are doing really well.
 
OK, well, maybe in his tank the CO2 or the flow distribution was better than it is in your tank. Rare has not much to do with the CO2 compensation point of a plant.

Personally I think it's a waste of time and energy to change the substrate, unless you simply don't like the way it looks or feels, or if you do not want to dose the water column. If you dose per EI then the substrate type is somewhat irrelevant in terms of nutrient uptake.

There is no problems re-using Amazonia. It's my favorite substrate, but it's expensive, so I lay down El Cheapo kitty litter at the bottom stuffed in nylon stockings and put the Amazonia over the top for visual appeal.

Cheers,
 
Hi Clive,

What kind of cheapo kitter litter do you lay down?
Such a good idea! Me likes!
 
Hi mate,
Yeah any non scented brand at Tescos. I'm living in Sweden so half the time I don't even know what I'm buying. I just go to the LFS or garden center and I reckon if it has a picture of a cat on it, it must be OK. The word Toa-Latt sounds like "toilet" to me, so that was the £64 clue. It's all just clay, same as Amazonia, except no nutrients. I guess you can even use this for your pet squirrel...or rabbit....or...anaconda?
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Cheers,
 
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