Easternlethal
Member
Sorry if this has been covered - how do you guys get low kh water? I think this will be the next variable I try to play with.
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Practical application of lean fertilizer dosing
- Thread starter MichaelJ
- Start date
plantnoobdude
Member
RODI, some people use hcl though.
Easternlethal
Member
Hmmm.... No peat moss or indian almond leaves?
Yes that is absolutely true and that's the reason I stopped using the term "low-tech" for my setups. However, I do see several advantages of a system like this especially when it comes to growing some of the most difficult stems in the hobby such as Ammania pedicillata golden, Cuphea utriculosa, Rotala tulunadensis etc.(I agree that I can't grow some species in these systems and that's why I also run a high-tech tank). I also agree that plants do struggle occasionally in my non-CO2 supplemented tanks but they come back nice and healthy most of the time.
Yes I know that and that's why I respect you when it comes to discussing and troubleshooting with regards to planted tanks. 😀
View attachment 2022-02-15_11-54-51.jpg
ElleDee
Member
@Easternlethal My tap water is just over 1 dkh. I'm dark cycling my first tank with aquasoil right now, so it's buffered down to 0 for the moment. I wonder how long that will be the case and how much new soil I'd need to add to keep it going? Questions for the future. I feel like that's going to be more effective than botanicals at least in anything bigger than a nano tank.
I've considered stuff like humic and fulvic acid too, which maybe could be an additional organic carbon source as well, but I didn't get deep enough into the research to decide if that was a worthy line of inquiry.
I've considered stuff like humic and fulvic acid too, which maybe could be an additional organic carbon source as well, but I didn't get deep enough into the research to decide if that was a worthy line of inquiry.
plantnoobdude
Member
wow, hands down best ultriculosa I've ever seen. amazing!!! the trade name is red cross correct?
Thanks. Yes that's correct.
Thanks @Hanuman
Really nice information. I am thinking about getting the book.
I have been growing three variants of verticillata (Pantanal, Cuba and Meta) in my 20 gal non-CO2 supplemented tank. All of them do stunt in this tank from time to time (quite natural for a fast growing plant without pressurized CO2 injection). However, it is still a mystery to me how they always bounce back after I trim the tops and replant them (these are the plants that I don't generally just trim and leave the bottom to grow, they do sprout new side shoots if I do that but my tank is quite small to keep a large bunch).
ElleDee
Member
@Sudipta - Do you have any theories about why those certain species do better in your non-injected tanks?
Also with regard to Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata variants I have read that Cuba and Meta are easier to keep happy than Pantanal. You mention that they all occasionally stunt, but do you find that there are any differences in how they are to grow?
Also with regard to Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata variants I have read that Cuba and Meta are easier to keep happy than Pantanal. You mention that they all occasionally stunt, but do you find that there are any differences in how they are to grow?
One of my challenges with Pantanal is that only the top leaves turn red while the leaves in the middle and lower remain green... I would like more of the plant to turn red (this photo was taken when I dosing APT EI at the recommended dose)
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Rain water from a large water butt, mine comes out at 1 KH
plantnoobdude
Member
I have the same problem, and also, my pantanal has very curly leaves that point downward.
One of my challenges with Pantanal is that only the top leaves turn red while the leaves in the middle and lower remain green... I would like more of the plant to turn red (this photo was taken when I dosing APT EI at the recommended dose)
my goal is something like this.🙂
Hello @ElleDee
My knowledge about plants is quite limited. Although I have been growing flowering plants and vegetables for quite long time (more than 25 years) but I was never interested in understanding about how they work on a molecular level (I still regret that, I could have learned a lot when I was studying in school/college). This changed quite significantly since I started my first planted tank (keeping fishes since my childhood) in the summer of 2018. It has become quite a fascination to me now. I have been trying to fill that knowledge gap but I think I am still in kindergarten 😄.
However, I can still share few things what I have learned so far.
All of these plants that people struggle with are not true aquatic plants, infact most plants in the hobby are like that. That's the primary reason why we inject pressurized CO2 in planted tanks. However, people still struggle to keep some of these plants (Ammania pedicillata golden as a perfect example), no matter how much CO2 they inject. Vin Kutty has done a great job experimenting with these plants.
Rotala Kill Tank
ROTALA KILL TANK Starting a new journal to document experiments on Lythraceae family of plants. Lythraceae include Rotala, Ammannia, Nesaea, Didiplis, and Cuphea. Those of you who have followed my other journal are familiar with the struggle that I (and countless others) have had with this...
barrreport.com
I think some of the transporter systems present in their leaves/stems of these plants are not very specific when it comes to importing ions such as nitrate, phosphate etc. When the plants are growing slow (less CO2 injection/non-CO2 system like mine) then there is less pressure on the transporters. They take their time and import the correct ions. However, when the system is pushed with CO2 injection then these importers have a hard time distinguishing these ions. They import the wrong ion (probably HCO3- instead of NO3- or HPO4-2 or H2PO4-1 or some other similar ions).
This is just my hypothesis and I don't have any proof of this. However, I can provide supporting argument from my current research. I am currently working with high-affinity bacterial phosphate binding protein which has a remarkable ability to distinguish between phosphate and extremely similar anion arsenate (most enzymes can't differentiate between these two ions and that's why arsenate is toxic). The protein from Pseudomonas fluorescens can differentiate between these two ions by a factor of roughly 700 folds. Protein from a strain of Halomonas (found in arsenate rich environment of Mono lake in California) has a differentiation factor of roughly 4500 folds. This particular protein in these bacteria help them to survive in harsh conditions rich in arsenate. Organisms lacking this mechanism won't survive in this environment.
I know I am stretching it too far by making a comparison here, however I can give another example from research done on plants (not aquatic plants). I don't think that most people in the hobby actually know that ammonium ions can interfere with potassium uptake in plants.
Most people struggle when they use fresh ammonia rich substrates (plant melting). There is a decent chance that if they add more potassium during the initial period (while the substrate is releasing decent amounts of ammonia), they might experience better results, less plant melt.
You can read this paper on this topic.
Competition between uptake of ammonium and potassium in barley and Arabidopsis roots: molecular mechanisms and physiological consequences - PMC
Plants can use ammonium (NH4+) as the sole nitrogen source, but at high NH4+ concentrations in the root medium, particularly in combination with a low availability of K+, plants suffer from NH4+ toxicity. To understand the role of K+ transporters ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I still have a lot to learn. 😅😅
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this is something Marcel has also talked about at some point and some of the the dosing was created based on this hypothesis, where plant were provided nutrients in such manner. the hypothesis was that if there was excess of one nutrient, plant spent too much energy uptaking that nutrient and then rejecting it till it picked up the correct one to balance it. but this hypothesis should be further investigated.
this is exactly what I been talking about on the other thread. co2 isn't the only solution for all the problems, its much more complex than that when it comes to these plants.
aquanoobie
Member
Hi @Sudipta
It sounds like ADA got it right with high K in the water column and NH4 leaching substrate.
Yup 👍🏽
Everyone’s slowly catching up with what @JoshP12 has already said in the last thread. He’s way ahead in this conversation. Smart chap!
then we would expect Tropica to increase their K levels in their liquid fertilizer, on top of that they add more NH4 in their liquid fertilizer while using NH4 rich ADA soil. this is the question only ADA can answer, why they choose to add more K in the water? they too add more NH4/Urea in their liquid fertilizer, if their concern was NH4 being released from the substrate and need for more K, then they wouldn't be adding more NH4/Urea in their liquid fertilizer to begin with.
even the data from those rivers that most of these plant originated from shows both NH4 0.07-0.32 range and K around 0.2-2.2 range present in the water all time, this is rather similar to Tropica level, none of the data shows very high amount of K in those waters. #3 with possibly high in organic decomposing resulting in higher Co2 32.4, NH4 0.32, K at 1.54
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MichaelJ
Member
Thanks for hammering this home @Happi ! - Remember I started a thread on this last year;
Amazon water types vs. "natural fertilizer" levels
Hello, I thought this was interesting: Chemistry of different Amazonian water types. Now, the paper is not specifically about aquatic plants in the Amazonas, but I thought it was interesting how low the water column levels of essentially every mineral are in the rivers they sampled from. I...
www.ukaps.org
I always like @JoshP12's posts. I am just a humble research engineer and apparently not smart enough to be able to immediately decrypt his condensed writing, but I love a good challenge and often I think I eventually get it. Takes a bit of effort.
Cheers,
Michael
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aquanoobie
Member
I guess they don't have the same understanding how things work. I am not saying one is right and the other is wrong, they simply don't share the same mythology. As I posted before, Tropica fertilizer is very close to Marschner's plant tissue analysis. So maybe they prefer this path.
And the ADA approach is far from Tropica and Marschner as it can be. Can you imagine Amano studying Marschner research? I don't. He was interested in bicycling and photographing nature and the art of it. So he brought home a bucket of fertile local river mud and some plants. Then he had to figure out what was missing the most to keep his tanks going. It was potassium, and ADA was born.
My explanation is ADA starts dosing urea later to compensate for the previously rich substrate to keep the balanced ecosystem rolling forward without much distraction.
Your first example of the river is
N 0.0544 to 0.2485
K 0.2 to 2.2
This comes to ratio of N : K of 0.27 to 0.11
Tropica ratio of N : K is 1.3 and Marschner is 1.5.
We can see Tropica and Marschner are very close, almost identical. But the river ratios of N and K are very different than Tropica and Marschner plant tissue.
Think Sudipta has already taken a pretty good stab at this question:
Applying additional K after root tabs also mitigates problems. Problems that are blamed by many on root tabs, rather than inadequacy between the interplay of substrate and water column nutrient availability. The total ammonia nitrogen leaching from substrate into the column at start up and after root tabs is high.
As for ADA’s current guidance with their substrate systems….
Only water column K and micros whilst soil is new. First six to nine months.
Really simple dosing instructions: more plants, dose more per day.
This increase also covers you if you add root tabs incidentally. They’ve done the thinking for the aquarist.
Then as @aquanoobie mentions:
Most stick to root tabs and keep soil dependency for N thereafter. Then focus on tank cleanliness to limit organic buildup in the substrate.
The main use for water column N supplementation on top of root tabs in ADA’s system would be for epiphytes. If you look at ADA’s traditional setups they tended to go with a lot of fish in their scapes with Amazonia 1. This has changed slightly with Amazonia 2 being used more frequently now. Folks mix and match dosing strategies these days so A2 plugs that gap.
Once again, just like the TPN+ question regarding which version of Tropica dosing was being referred to, over a thousand posts ago… when you’re talking about ADA dosing it matters what time period you are referring to. They’ve changed their method several times, for example, from Special LIGHTS/SHADE series to the Green Brighty Series. Need to be specific to work out their intended system of nutrient delivery across time.
