Been thinking about why people fail with UG, albeit there aren’t many journals out there documenting their failures. More a case of folks personally saying that they tried it and it melted beautifully.
Whichever way this goes hoping this journal is useful to anyone else who fancies a go with Ultricularia graminifolia, not just a pretty picture parade.
Using plain old Tropica powder for this setup. Going to water change the water daily and float some plants first to shift ammonia out as much as possible. Then plant the UG.
Betting that aquarium soil is still a good bet as further down the line UG will need micronutrients, it seems the initial planting phase is the iffy bit.
Infusoria can be provided by rain barrel water or water changing with water from an existing tank. Lots of wildlife culture to be taken from a thimble of existing substrate too. If mixing water from an existing tank, the AS600 hard water setup is the oldest in the house and you can see wildlife scurrying around if you look closely at the substrate. A rough 50/50 mix with RO would put KH between 8-10, which I currently understand is pretty ideal for graminifolia. That figure is including the buffering of the aquarium soil. More importantly the water and existing substrate contain wildlife from a mature setup if the parameter changes aren’t too much for them.
The other thing I’ve noted when searching about is folks using small filters on nano tanks when trying to grow UG. To rule out filtration as a factor using an Eheim Ecco filter that effectively doubles the water volume of this setup with plenty of capacity, turnover and output for around tank flow.
Looking at other write up’s, it seems clear UG does not like ammonia by the way it reacts when planted into fresh aquarium soil, similar to MC and HC early on. People say it dies off but if you read the journals carefully, what they’re describing is the plant melting and lifting out of the substrate. Not a botanist but sounds like it is simply moving itself to another location - its off to a new home and the ammonia melt just made that possible. If it weren’t for our intervention of trying to shove it back down over and over would it not float away in the wild and probably grow elsewhere? Would make sense for an affixed subaquatic plant cut loose to explore its options given ammonia would be lethal to its food sources. Is this the difference in success between aquarium soil and inert substrate attempts? Inert favours the initial stage but soil is more useful long term?
Being an awkward sod I’m looking for the best of both worlds; micronutrient availability for further down the line but as much flushing of ammonia from the soil using water changes in the beginning, plus using floaters to mop up the water column.
