If ug can be done better it ain’t by me. Can not get it to take off at all so I’m hugely envious of your tank even if you think it ain’t so.
It’s a bit premature but here’s what makes sense about startup from this experience so far
@Garuf
RO water remineralised to 5GH and 1KH is working fine.
@Christel in her latest wonderful book puts the River Thodupuzha, where UG can be found in India, in water with <1KH and 0.9GH with TDS 31.3. Suffice to say soft water with low carbonate hardness is the way to go.
Burying UG deep into soil at startup is a must. If you don’t it will result in failure.
On the burying point above… Dark starting the tank upfront to lower ammonia levels from the soil makes sense with carpeting species in general. Helps lower the chance of melt. In this setup it was only a week long dark start but would hazard a guess that this was important given subsequent experience.
A paramecium culture being added at water change each week is a good way to feed UG. Freshly hatched baby brine shrimp may seem like an alternative, but can result in algae due to their limited survival time in fresh water before polluting the water column to no benefit. A diverse substrate with lots of critters is useful. If you have a rain barrel with life in it’s worth considering using the rain water. Ours here always have dead snails and slugs that find their way in so the water has high ammonia levels. Something to watch out for before adding.
Adding a very small amount of potassium each day seems to help. Micros I’m still unsure of but add it in very small amounts regardless. Nitrate and phosphate via inorganic means is useless to UG it appears.
UG seems extremely tolerant to various amounts of dissolved Co2. It also seems pretty forgiving to varied light levels having played around over the months. Plummeting your pH by going over the top with Co2 isn’t wise, less for the plant and more for the diversity of life it eats.
I will say this is a mono species setup, without stock. Others have done just fine with mixed planting and off the shelf ferts. Those tanks seem to have high plant mass besides UG and use leaner fert regimes, so it’s highly likely their water column is kept lean and close to what UG is accustomed to despite the comprehensive fertilisation being added.
Take all this with a pinch of salt
@Garuf, it’s entirely anecdotal and only happened once. Hopefully there’s something useful to you though that may trigger a thought as to what may have happened in your experiences.
